Suspected hamster pregnancy

Thanks again everyone for your responses.

I decided against the baby food because I'm sure the pups are going to crawl into it and just get covered. They are crawling into all the food dishes.

The pups & mom have got lots of chopped cucumber for hydration, other vegetables, chicken, seed mix, meal worms & nuts.

I use Higgins sunburst & critter cubes for their daily mix.

I've also got eggs and tofu and other vegetables I can offer for variety.

I do have a water bottle in there still for mom (I usually keep a bottle & bowl in all my enclosures, but have removed the bowl).

Also gonna order some more sprays. Poor mom is missing her wheel, would like to offer some new forage so she has something to do other than wrangling her offspring.

Definitely I'll be getting ready to seperate everyone in a few weeks time. This is so adorable but 1 litter is plenty.
 
Sprays sounds a great idea :) It sounds like you're well prepared. In terms of the mix, Higgins sunburst has fruit in it, so as they're dwarf hamsters it would be better if the mix didn't have fruit and sugars. Can you get Higgins Vita Garden?
 
It sounds exciting and stressful all at once :-) Sorry yes of course you already had a water bottle for Mum! I bet the pups will be full of jinks in the next week or so.
 
Wow! What an experience. Thought I'd give a little update at the other side of this.

So it absolutely was the cutest thing ever. It was also harder than I thought to find homes for 8 pups. Only giving hamsters to people who will look after them properly is extremely limiting. I'm keeping 2, I've found homes for 4 and still hoping to find homes for another 2 so wish me luck.

I got a lot of my information during this process from strongbrew hamsterys pregnancy crash course, and gingers guide. I also got some of my other questions answered by this forum, and a few breeders I follow on instagram were very generous with their time and knowledge and helped me with random questions and concerns I had.

https://strongbrew.ca/crashcoursepregnancy
https://hamstercareguide.com/

It's hard to know exactly when Mamabear had her pups, since they stay in the burrow for 10-14 days, but I suspect she had them within a day or two of arriving at my place. Prior to that she'd been in a small bin with the father. So I'm glad I was able to get her into her own set up and provide lots of the resources she needed in time. I suspected she was pregnant when I got her, so I was feeding very generously.

Once I realized there were pups, I made sure there was plenty of seed mix and lab blocks. I also fed cooked chicken, chopped vegetables (especially cucumber for hydration), freeze dried meal worms, and sometimes safe baby foods. I removed the wheel, sandbath and water bowl. I added a second water bottle.

I sexed the pups at 4 weeks, and then continued to double check. Around 5 weeks I realized one of the pups I'd sexed as a female was actually male. After consulting a breeder they recommended I put him by himself instead of trying to reintegrate with his brothers at that time. Fortunately there were no more pregnancies as a result of this (possible - but unlikely at that age). I ended up with 6 males and 2 females.

I tried to figure out their colourings. I think two are black with silvering, two are opal/sapphire, and 4 are agouti (some with mottling).

The usual recommendation is to keep them in same sex groups until 8 weeks (or longer with dwarves) and remove any that are showing signs or aggression or being territorial. I decided to separate everyone at just under 6 weeks because I was going out of town and monitoring for & identifying hamster aggression was outside my husbands area of knowledge. This wasn't ideal, but we do the best we can in these situations, and it seemed the safest choice.

I have a really big cage (5 ft x 2 ft x 2 ft) so I was able to put dividers in that and make it into 5 smaller enclosures which I used for separating as well as some bins. I also used some bins and started looking for homes.

Things are pretty much wrapped up now. The pups are 4.5 months old now. Four have been rehomed. I'm keeping 2 and I was able to find some used aquariums and have them set up in those. The two I'm still trying to rehome are in large bin cages with all the essentials.

Mamabear of course got the massive tank, she did such a good job raising all those pups and now she's enjoying the solitude. When she had the pups I would watch her leave the burrow, bury the opening with bedding, and then go nap by herself in a log 🤣.

This was really fun, but I'll be cautious before doing it again. It's been hard finding homes for everyone and I've spent a small fortune on bins, bedding and other hamster supplies. I'm glad I was in a position to do that - and didn't have to compromise on care standards in order to get them adopted out.

I've included a few videos and photos of the pups and of Mamabear's retirement enclosure.


https://imgur.com/a/p6juT0b
 
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Well done :) They are so beautiful. I do hope you find good homes for them. Very good idea to get advice from experienced breeders like Strongbrew!
 
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