Hamster death

Question
I had a very active Teddy Bear Hamster that was barely a year old. He was very active until a couple of hours before he died, and would run in his wheel for hours. A couple of days ago I walked by his cage and realizing that I hadn't heard him in a couple of hours looked and saw him huddled in the corner, with his face down in the bedding. I picked him up, and found that he was barely breathing. I don't believe he had wet tail, and the temperature was the norm for our house. I was wondering, could the fact that I switched his food a couple of days before contributed to his death? I saw Oxbow Healthy Handfuls on display and decided to try it. He seemed to like the food but I can't think of anything different, other than I also bought him a new wheel for his cage at the time. I'm really trying to understand what happened so I can prevent this in the future.

Answer
Hi Amanda

I'm really sorry to hear about your hamster.  Unfortunately you will probably never know why he died.

I doubt that the food was the cause - if there is a problem with food, usually the hamster shows signs of diarrhoea and clearly looks ill for a day or two.  If this were kidney related, or a tumor then I would have expected there to have been other signs - i.e. increase in water consumption and deterioration tends to be quite slow.

The fact that one minute he was Ok, the next he had died makes me feel this was probably heart related.  It could be that he was born with a heart problem and it was just his time to die.  I have known this to happen before (I had a 6 week old hamster who collapsed and died suddenly and my vet was convinced it was a genetic heart disorder). Other illnesses, such as aspergillosis (where a hamster has breathed in fungal spores from damp bedding/food etc.) also isn't as fast.  Although the hamster collapses, they tend to have other symptoms in that their breathing is laboured.

I am sure you did nothing wrong and therefore chances are that if you have another hamster at any stage that one will be fine.  Sadly with these little creatures illness can sometimes hit them quickly and due to their small size post mortems are not an option and therefore there is no way of knowing exactly what the cause of death was.

I hope this helps put your mind at rest.

Regards
Sheila