All About Breeding And Raising Baby Hamster

You’ll find all about breeding and raising baby hamster in this article, but first, why you shouldn’t intentionally breed your hamsters:

• Selling is difficult: Pet stores only buy from a very small number of reliable breeders.
• Finding homes: Female hamsters can have a litter of 4 to as many as 15 babies.
• Bad genetics: You might end up with offspring that have genetic defects or mental illnesses.

Breeding And Raising Baby Hamster

Litter Sizes

Be aware that female hamsters can have a litter of 4 to as many as 15 pups if you want a new hobby and are thinking about breeding them. Do you have enough room to care for a litter of adult hamsters when they are born? Do you have a few friends or relatives who would be willing to take in a baby? The males will also start reproducing after 40 days if you don’t separate them from the females or completely separate them if they are Syrian hamsters.

Litter Sizes Per Breed Type:

Syrian: 4-12
Campbell’s: 7-8
Winter White: 4-6
Roborovski: 3-5
Chinese: 4-5

Selling

The following should be taken into consideration before hamster breeding. There are numerous logistical considerations and entry-level obstacles whether you want to breed them for personal enjoyment or to sell the offspring for extra money. First and foremost, don’t breed with the intention of selling to pet stores or even online; you won’t be able to sell them quickly enough, and your local dog store has almost no chance of buying them. Few trustworthy breeders sell their animals to pet stores. Additionally, your state or province probably has laws governing the sale of hamsters.

Birth Defects

Finally, if you don’t know which types to breed with one another, you risk producing offspring with genetic flaws. These infants may be born without eyes or teeth, and they will most likely pass away within two weeks of being born. Syrians and dwarf breeds can both produce children with genetic or mental illnesses.

Genetic Defects or Mental Illnesses

The offspring you get from mating two Campbells with the mottled gene, who have ruby red eyes, and pinto-like markings will be all white, without eyes or teeth, and will pass away in two weeks.

Syrians with the recessive anophthalmic gene are roan in color and have white bellies. Two of these will produce all-white, eyeless newborns that will pass away in just 14 days if they are mated.

Babies born to two closely related hamsters (small gene pool) may be born with mental disorders. These repetitive behaviors, which resemble OCD, include uncontrollable backflips and constant pacing back and forth.

For the first three weeks after birth, newborn hamsters must entirely rely on their mother because they are born blind and naked.

Breeding Babies

The mating season occurs in the wild from early spring to late summer. Artificial lighting may enable them to reproduce year-round in captivity. Males will look for willing females during the mating season. Shortly after mating, the female (in Syrian breeds) will start acting aggressively toward the male. Then there will be mating. Every four days, for a period of 12 hours, females are prepared for mating.

You should only pair up a male Syrian with a female counterpart for a brief period of time because when a female is in estrus and willing, she will enter the lordosis. It won’t happen if they don’t mate within 15 to 30 minutes, so you should separate the pair.

A baby is born roughly every fifteen to thirty minutes during the first one to two hours of labor. The mother will clean each baby after birth by licking it. She will, however, probably eat her young if she senses danger. This kronismus-related behavior is a common defense mechanism.

For the first week or so after giving birth, it’s crucial to leave the mother and her nest alone. Try your best to keep the area where your cage is quiet, and only enter the cage to restock the water and food bowls. We advise stocking up so that you won’t need to refill these for a few days.

Syrian male dwarfs, particularly robo dwarf hamsters, will help keep the young hamsters warm while the mother is away from them. Only the mother Syrian will look after her young.

From the time of mating to the time of birth, the gestation period is very brief—16 days for Golden Syrians and 18–20 days for dwarf types. The mother will start to consume (need) a lot of protein-rich hamster foods at this time, as well as gather soft bedding and construct a birthing nest.

Raising Baby Hamsters

• Day 1: Infants are naked, blind, weigh less than two grams and very vulnerable.
• Day 4: They begin to blindly crawl out from the nest and start snacking on solid foods.
• Day 6: They will have doubled in weight, their fur will become visible and their ear canals will begin to open.
• Day 10: At this time they will begin to crawl around the cage. They will begin to nurse immediately.
• Week 2: The eyes of the hamsters will now be open and the youngsters will be able to see fully.
• Month 3: The mom will nurse her young for up to the third month and then commence to lose interest.
• Month 4: At this time the mom will abandon them but still tolerate them in her habitat for a short while longer.

Note: 40 days after birth, a young hamster is now sexually mature and able to reproduce. Should you have the larger Syrian breed of hamster you should separate them at this time to avoid them from fighting.

Orphaned or Abandoned

Mothers typically have a maternal instinct and will permit this to occur. But occasionally a mother will turn her back on her children and leave the nest. She might come back and eat them later. You may need to find a surrogate or raise the child yourself if you discover that your mother won’t be a good mother. Because it is so challenging to raise newborns by hand, you should seek advice from a veterinarian or other expert. You’ll need a tiny syringe, a special baby formula, and the ability to feed them at all hours of the day and night.

It would be preferable if another female could take care of these abandoned children. This is also challenging. A mother will consume a pup that is not her own if she smells it.

The baby hamsters should be cleaned first to get rid of the smell of their old nest before being covered in the other mother’s nesting material to cover the smell. Place the orphaned pups into the surrogate’s nest after using a treat to coax the mother outside. As long as you can keep the mother occupied, let them pick up the scent of her young. If the mom will accept the other pips is up in the air. More than one or two abandoned infants will reduce the likelihood of success even further.

Are you looking for more insights into hamster care? Add a comment below to let us know!

Waiting for our next post here.

By HamsterCareTip.Com