missing roborvoski hamster

Question
QUESTION: Hi i bought 2 roborvoski babies 6 months ago they were 9 week old sisters. I woke up one morning to find a piece of skin the size of a 10 pence piece at the bottom of the cage with fur attached to it. My first instinct was that the other one had eaten it. It has been 3 weeks now and i have not found it, we have 2 cats. I put a tree house in their cage that nearly reached the top and i don`t know whether the cat could have pulled it through the bars, they usually leave mice around for us to see and there is no sign.
I have left food in every room and there has been none eaten, we have checked bedding carefully and have found no bones just a piece of skin. One hamster was bigger than the other and it is the little one that has gone.
I am so upset as it is the not knowing what has happened to it. I saw them fighting once but not enough to seperate them. Can you help?.

         Thanks
         Fiona

ANSWER: Hi Fiona

I'm really sorry to hear about your hamster.

I'm afraid I don't know what happened.  If the other robo killed it, then while they do sometimes mutilate each other after death, I would have expected you to have found more of a trace of him and therefore I think it is unlikely this is what happened.  Often robos (or other dwarf hamsters) do fight, and bully each other, and I have known them to kill, but there are often serious fights beforehand, and I've always found a body more or less intact.

If you think there is any possibility that he has just escaped (although that doesn't solve the mystery of the skin), then you could try putting down a humane mouse trap -these are the ones that trap the mouse alive.  These are great for catching robos in.

In case it was your cats who got to him, the important thing is to make absolutely certain they can't get to the other one.  Can the cage be moved to an area where the cats can't go?  How large is the gap between the bars?  It would be worth checking out as it would awful if this happened again.

Something like this is always a real shock and very sad and I really sympathise with you having to go through something like this.  Unfortunately you may never know what actually happened.

Regards

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi thanks for the speedy reply. The bars are just under half an inch wide. If it did escape could it survive with a third of its skin missing?. I am sure that the cat could not have got it as the little hamsters are so quick and even run when i go to clean them out. It puzzles me as there was no blood in the cage and my cats would of left it around, and they dont take much notice of the hamsters anyway. I already tried the humane traps. Surely the other hamster could not eat its own body size in 1 night.

Thanks again

         Fiona

Answer
Hi

I've been thinking about this some more and also had a chat with a friend who rescues hamsters.  

If your cat caught your hamster then they would more than likely have left the head in the cage as they may not have got this out through the bars.

If your other robo had killed and eaten it, then it is very unlikely they would have been able to eat her in a night - they do sometimes mutilate each other after death - but, as I mentioned earlier, I've never seen them eat them.  Robos don't fight that much, and if they do they tend to attack the rear end - this is usually bloody and bald where they bite each other.

It is possible that the larger one was bullying the smaller one, which is one of the reasons why the smaller one was that size - if they are being bullied they can stop eating or eat less as they are stressed and subsequently lose weight.  For whatever reason perhaps the smaller one died, then the most logical explanation was that a fly laid eggs on it and it was eaten by maggots.  Sounds really horrible, I know, but this is a possibility.  Maggots can eat a hamster in only 24 hours and since all that was left was the skin (which for a robo, their entire skin is probably not a lot more than a 10 pence piece), this might be the explanation.  

Sorry to suggest a gruesome theory, but this may well be what happened.  

Regards