crisis..

Question
so i got a panda bear hamster for my birthday, and it was really fat. my boyfriend, his mother and i all thought it was a boy. then the second day i had it (thursday) i noticed what looked like his intestines coming out. but when he moved it was babies. this concluded that he was a she and that she wasnt fat just pregnant. there are 3 that i was able to count. just today like 30 mins. ago (saturday) i was just watching her and taking some pictures without the flash. i took some of the babies while the mother was in the wheel (totally away from them) and then i was just watching her drag them around while feeding them and it looked like she was cleaning them all until the last one it looked like she was biting it. it was screeching a little and it looked like blood so i left cauz i couldnt watch. so my boyfriend looked and said he didnt see anything. when i went back to look it looked like she had 2 latched on to her and she was scrambling through the 'shivers' as i call it, like she was looking for the 3rd one. i noticed a little more blood on her paw while she was walking. i guess what my ACTUAL question is, is could she of eaten the one baby? its only been 3 days they have been alive. please get back to me ASAP. thanks so much.

Answer
Hi Meagan,

A mother hamster should be left completely alone for the first two weeks after the babies have been born.

If she feels threatened then she will destroy or abandon the whole litter, so please leave her and the babies alone and please dont take any more photos of them - it probably scares them and stresses out the mother.

You must not clean out the cage until the babies are three weeks old.

Good Luck.

Kind Regards,

Tammy