pregnancy

Question
I took my girl hamster to see my friends hamsters which are boys yesterday and i think my hamster might have mated with one of them. How can i tell if my hamster is pregnant or not?

Answer
Hi Mary

Firstly, a word of warning with hamsters - they really should not be introduced to one another otherwise they can fight and cause terrible injuries as they are incredibly territorial creatures.  The only time it is Ok to introduce a male to a female (although there is a lot of risk involved in case the female turns on the male) is to mate them.  Therefore, if they do meet up and the female is in season they will mate.

The female comes into season every 4th day.  On 3 of these days if she meets a male she will be aggressive towards him and it will end up in a serious fight.  However, if you introduce them on the 4th day she will be receptive - she usually stiffens and arches her back when she smells the male, and the male will therefore mount her. It only takes a minute, so it is over very quickly.

If this is what has happened, it is hard to know for sure if she has conceived.  Often they conceive, only to reabsorb/miscarry afterwards.  The only real way to know for sure is to wait for the gestation period to pass.

If these are Syrians, this period is 16 - 18 days, if they are dwarf hamsters it is 18 - 21 days.  Often a pregnant hamster will drink more water than usual, might noticeably keep moving their nest and hoarding food and when it is close to the birth date they will show a bulge on their hips and their nipples can become raised.  They remain fully active right up until it is time for them to give birth.

If you think she might be pregnant there are a few precautions you should take.  Firstly, don't overfeed her right now - just give her usual amount of food (dried hamster mix and some fresh vegetables, avoiding lettuce as this can cause diarrhoea). If a litter appears you should increase her food intake with  raw porridge oats, breadcrumbs, scrambled egg, and baby food which gives extra nutrients.  Close to the time that she might give birth, remove any enclosed parts of the cage if you can - i.e. houses, tubes etc.  It is much less stressful all round if a litter is born under a platform or in the open as if the litter is big, an enclosed space can be too small for the whole litter as it starts to grow.  Also, if she has a wheel that has bars on it or a drainage slit this must be replaced with a solid wheel otherwise any babies can get injured.  Bedding-wise - it is important you use a paper based bedding rather than the 'fluffy' type as babies can get tangled up in the fluffy bedding and this can end up with missing limbs.

When you clean her out over the next 2-3 weeks, check very carefully in the cage that there is no litter, and if you can return as much of her food hoard to her if it is clean, and any clean bedding so that she doesn't get stressed.

If she has a litter, please feel free to get in touch and I can give you a step by step guide as to what to do.

I hope this helps you.

Regards
Sheila