Breeding TipsFirst of all, I do like to share some of my experiences in breeding with you guys. So, try to follow each of the below steps closely to ensure that the newborn pups have a healthy growing environment ^^
Things to be noted before breeding1. The best breeding time for WW is around 3-6 months old. Hamsters who are older than 1 year old are not advisable to breed anymore.
2. Make sure both the male and female hamsters are both healthy. Make sure the female hamster is not over-stress in breeding. For illustration, after every cycle of breeding, make sure the female have at least 3 months period to rest before breeding again.
3. Breeding requires a huge mass of knowledge. Therefore, please do more researches on breeding before proceed with it.
4. Be prepared in all sense as in mentally, financially, knowledge and time. You will gotta spend alot of efforts to take care the pups later on. Please bear in mind breeding would never bring any profit to you even if your intention is to sell them off. Make a rough calculation on the expenses you gotta spend on it and make sure you have sufficient fund to sustain all the hamsters.
5. Prepare extra cages for the new pups in case you could not find them new owner later on.
6. Please do breeding for a specific reason rather than hoping to earn something out of it.
7. Never mate hamster which are different breed. Example, breeding WW and Campbell is prohibited to prevent hybrid hamster being produced. Moreover, hamsters who are from the same family cannot be breed together as it might produce unhealthy hamster.
Procedures before mating1. Before you intend to breed a female hamster with a male hamster, try to place the female hamster's cage near the male's cage for at least 2 weeks to get them used to each others scene.
2. Occasionally, grab some beddings from each cage and place it into the other party's cage. Hamster relies alot on their nose, thus getting them to recognize each other scene is very important and crucial.
3. Sometimes, do introduce them to each other for testing purpose. This can be done by placing the male outside the female hamster's cage when the female hamster is near the fence. ( do this step only after 2 weeks later from the 1st day step 1 started )
4. After repeating step 3 for a week, you can try to place them together at a neutral place which has no comment scene or items. A good example is a large empty paper box. If they fight with each other immediately after you placed them together, then you should reconsider the decision to mate them. Else you can give it another last try like 2 weeks later to re-introduce them again.
5. If they still fight with each other badly on the next meet after 2 weeks, it's really not advisable to mate them as they couldn't even get along well together.
6. On the other hand, if everything turn out to be smooth on the 1st meet, then try to repeat step 4 for one week.
7. If they can get along well enough after 1 week, then try to place them in a same cage which is clean. Clean the cage with bleach and water (ratio 1:30) and soak it for at least 20minutes. Not for too long as bleach is strong acid.
8. Lastly, observe them closely for the first few days together in the same cage and separate them if any fight/injury occurs.
Noted: Preparation work usually take place around 1 month before you actually put them to mate.
Procedures prior to give birth1. WW usually gives birth on the 18-21 days after mating. So it's good to know the exact mating time as there are plenty of preparation to do also.
2. Observe the female hamster closely and try to check on her physical shape and behaviors. On the 14th or 15th day after mating, it's quite obvious that her body get bloated and her movement is slower. She might become more defensive and tends to start building her nest.
3. There are some precautions which you need to be aware of such as try to avoid her falling down from a high place. Falling down from high places might cause miscarriage to the female hamster. Furthermore, try not to handle her too much as she would get stress up easily.
4. On the 14th or 15th day, clean the cage and separate the male into another separate cage. It's important to clean the cage now as you should not disturb the cage for at least 2 weeks after giving birth.
Noted: Separate the male from the female cage after 14th or 15th day of a success mating. Do not keep or let the male and female meet until a month after giving birth. This is to prevent the female hamster from getting stress up, or worst get pregnant again.
Things to do & NOT to do after hamster give birth1. Do NOT touch anything inside the cage or hamsters until at least 2 weeks later from the date of birth. You may peep inside the cage but do not disturb the cage, unless there are any special circumstances which need your assistance.
2. Do wrap the cage will cardboard or newspaper to provide a more secure and comfortable environment for the female hamster and the pups.
3. Make sure the female hamster has sufficient food variety. Provide her all kind of suitable protein foods such as hard boil egg white, chicken kibbles, soft cook chicken meat, carrot,vegetables, huge amount of hamster food, tofu, bread and etc.
4. Even the cage does smell bad, try NOT to clean it until at least 2 weeks later from the date of birth.
5. Place the cage at a quiet and warm environment. Noisy environment might stress up the female hamster.
6. Do remove the wheel inside the cage or any moving accessories to avoid any injury to the pups.
7. After 2 weeks when the pups start running around with eye slight open, you can proceed with cleaning the cage and handling them(just minimal). Keep in mind that not to stress them too much as the mummy might be quite defensive and the babies are still not used to human hands yet. The pups should be able to start taking small solid food after 2 week also.
Growing Cycle________
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________The top left picture indicates that newborn pups which look furless and redish. At this moment, they are not able to see or listen anything as their organs are not fully grown yet.
The top right picture was taken a week after the pups were borne. They started to grow fur and some similarity with their parents can be identified.
The bottom left picture was taken on the 2nd week after the pups were borne. They start to open their eye and able to listen already. They will also start to walk around the cage and find for foods.
The bottom right picture was taken on the 3rd week after the pups were borne. At this stage, you can see that they are actually a mini size version of their parents.
Reasons for female hamster killing her pups
The above steps are the usual safety procedures I would take to ensure a smooth breeding process. However, there's always exceptional cases whereby end up the pups not surviving.
The below are some common reasons for the pups not surviving.
1. Unhealthy pups.
The pups might be borne under unhealthy conditions due to bad genes, in-breeding or other factors.
2. Virus or bacteria infection at the young age.
If the cage get contaminated by virus/bacteria, the pups might get infected and not able to survive.
3. Eaten by the female hamster for a certain reasons.
There are many reasons for the female hamster to kill her own pups such are insufficient nutrients to sustain a big group of pups, stress up by environment factors, change in scene of the pups after disturbance by human, bad mother and etc.
4. bad environment conditions
Bad environment conditions such as too hot/cold environment, contaminated food/water provided, dangerous environment and etc can also lead to death of the pups.
Noted: hamsters are just like human and are unique individually. Therefore, it's always better to treat each situation on case-to-case basis.
Sexing HamsterAfter the pups reach around 4 weeks old, it's time to separate the male and female hamsters into different cages to avoid in-breeding. Usually pups at 4 weeks old are harder to identify their sex and not 100% guarantee correct. However, when the hamsters reach 6 weeks old, the male hamster should be pretty easy to be recognized as they have bigger anus and obvious greater distance compared to the female. Below is a diagrams on differentiating their gender.
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