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Know how to successfully breed hamsters
Successful hamster breeding requires that you have lots of spare time and have large amounts of patience. You need to follow some basis steps for successfully breeding hamsters. Below you’ll find our guide to enjoy this wonderful part of hamster keeping.
Preparation required for breeding hamsters:
You will first need to buy the mother and father hamster. Breeding hamsters from different families is fine, but you must ensure that it is from the same breed type. Breeding sibling hamsters is not suggestible. This can cause birth defects for some hamster breeds.
The mother can breed when she is four to six months old and the father can breed when he is two to three months old.
Female hamster are known to be territorial. So, for the mating ritual, never put the male hamster into the cage of the female as there is a possibility she might kill him. Initially it is better to put the cages of the male and female hamster side by side. This will allow them to get familiar with each other without the fear of any battle cropping up. Another good option is to put both the male and female hamster in a new cage. Follow this step by step procedure to ensure safe mating. First, they should be kept together for only 5 minutes. After few days the duration of time can be increased to 10 minutes. If they do start fighting separate them immediately. You may need to follow the above steps repeatedly to ensure they actually mate.
As soon as the mating process is over the male and female hamster should be separated. There are cases recorded where the male hamsters have been known to eat the babies once the mother gives birth. To avoid this, keep the male hamster separated from the female hamster at all times, unless mating the pair.
After the gestation period of 15 to 18 days the babies will be born. In fact you will notice some swelling on the stomach of the female hamster on the 10th day. Make sure you clean the cage on the 14th day because you will not be able to do so after the birth of the babies. The mother hamster will keep moving round the cage while giving birth to the babies. Sometimes during the birthing process she’ll move the babies to her next, other times she’ll wait to pick up the babies until she is finished giving birth. Either way is fine.
After the birth of the babies, do not go near them or even try to touch them, however tempting it might be. If by chance your scent gets passes on to the babies, the mother hamster might stop caring for them, or in the worst case scenario will eat them. You can occasionally change the water supply the regular food supply to maintain cleanliness. At the end of three weeks, you can detach the babies from the mother and put them in a new cage.
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Source by Mary Wilbur
