What should you do if your hamster has babies? If your hamster is pregnant, then you’ll need to know what to do when the baby hamsters arrive.
Firstly it’s important to note that a female hamster will start nesting when she is pregnant. You should provide some nesting material for her. You should also ensure that the cage is clean and that any toys and wheels are removed.
If you don’t remove the toys from your hamster’s cage she may be looking to get rid of excess energy after the birth and start to play. If she gets too over excited she may fall on the baby hamsters and kill them.
Before and after the birth of baby hamsters
For a couple of days before the babies are due you should not disturb your pet, she will just want to nest and prepare for the birth. If you’re wondering “how many babies will my hamster have?” there is no easy answer to that question. Hamster litters vary in size, from one to as many as twenty, so be prepared.
If you have more interest in this topic, you can find out more about hamster pregnancy and the hamster life cycle.
Baby hamsters are born blind, deaf and naked. This doesn’t mean that you should try and move them if they are born scattered around the cage. Your hamster will have the mothering instinct and she will go and collect the new born hamsters and bring them to the nest. If you get your scent on the babies at this time there is a proceedod chance their mother will abandon them. For this reason you should also not attempt to clean the cage for a couple of weeks after the babies are born.
The first two weeks of a baby hamster’s life
By the time they are five days old most baby hamsters have a light covering of fur! They are still blind at this point, but this doesn’t stop them from exploring the cage from the time they are about seven days old. You should make sure that you lower the water bottles in the cage so that the days’ previous baby hamsters can reach them.
It’s also a good idea to scatter some food around the cage so that they can pick it up and eat it, as well as being fed by their mother. At this stage the baby hamsters will start to look like a proper hamster but they can’t see until their eyes begin to open when they are about two weeks old.
When can baby hamsters leave their mother?
Although baby hamsters can see from the age of two weeks they are still too young to leave their mother. It’s an important time in the rearing process of a baby hamster though. This is the time when you should clean the cage and add some fresh bedding.
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It’s also the time when you should start to handle a baby hamster. The mother will now be less concerned about this, and the sooner you start to handle hamsters, the sooner they start to get used to you. Make sure you are gentle when holding baby hamsters. You should also remember that they can move very fast, so be careful.
When they are between 21 and 28 days old baby hamsters are ready to leave their mother. You need to make sure you separate them at this stage. If you don’t remove them from their mother’s cage she will start to chase them away. Should you have dwarf hamsters they should be separated into male and female-only cages. Although they will probably live really well together, you need to watch for any fight and separate them further if this happens. If you have Syrian hamsters each baby needs to be given its own cage, or they will start to fight.
Raising baby hamsters isn’t hard; the mother hamster does most of the work, but you do have to make sure that you’re very careful in following a procedures correctly, to ensure your hamsters are happy and healthy.