Suprize baby hamsters.

Question
I want to explain what has happened because I know little about hamsters, & would like advise on the situation. I have a 5 & 3 yr old & they wanted a small pet. So when I went to a fairly well know pet shop in our area (not big chain store) I explained that we wanted a 2 small pets that could share one cage. They said the best thing would be 2 teddy bear hamsters. We bought a critter2 cage & all the works. Now as I have been reading up, most say hamsters need to be seperate. Also, they decided to give us a boy & girl. Today I was suprized with babys.So... should the 2 be seperated and when now that there are babys? Or can they stay in same cage? Obviously there will be babys if so. I talked to pet store they were purchased at& they said to keep babys for 5 weeks & then bring babys to them. Any advise would be apperciated. I was sorta thrown a curve ball when I assumed they would have been carefull with suggesting pets when I explained what we wanted. Please help.

Answer
This is why it's always important to do your own research before bringing animals into the household. Pet stores rarely train their staff beyond how to keep the cages clean. They recommend anything to get a sale off of you, you don't know how common of a complaint this is. Now the pet store is going to get a free batch of hamsters to sell off of you, DON'T GIVE THEM TO THE PET STORE or they will suffer the same fate.

Please separate male and female into 2 tanks now, males have no physical responsibility to their pups, and will likely try to attack them. Let them stay with their mom for 4 weeks (not 5, again the pet store just wants them to inbreed) and then separate them into like gender tanks. Girls can stay with mom longer if they tolerate it, but the maximum is 2 months. After 2 months its best to have every hamster in a separate tank, but you should try to give them away starting at 4 weeks.

Don't take them back to the pet store, they are just going to let the brothers and sisters mate with each other and sell them off to someone else. It endangers the health of the babies YOU, yes you brought into this world. I would sell/give each one away on craigslist, through a classified in the newspaper, or ask your family/friend circle if anyone would like a hamster.