how do i breed hamsters?

Question
i own a male and one female sapphire hamster. i am not sure how old they must be to breed. i also want to know what i should do if i have new born babies.

Answer
Hi Charmaine

The first thing is - how many hamsters are you planning on having?  Hamsters do become sexually active at 4 weeks, although they may not mate then.  However, there is always the possibility.  Also, the female comes into season every 4 days.  If they do mate and the female produces a litter, they will mate again on the day she gives birth as she is her most fertile then.  This means that you could end up with a second litter a few weeks later.

Gestation period for dwarf hamsters is 18 - 21 days.

If you think the female is pregnant, don't over feed her - just give her the usual amount of food.  Once the litter is born, then you can supplement her usual food with human baby food - the powdered variety - mix with water (not milk as this causes diarrhea).  The babies can also eat this when they are a couple of weeks old.

If you find yourself with a second litter, there could be squabbling and sometimes the first litter will attack the second litter, so you need to think carefully about having a large hamstery.  I foster hamsters for a rescue and they are always getting cages full of dwarf hamsters where their owner decided to breed them and got over-run in a relatively short space of time - so you need to be very careful.  

The boys can be separated and put into a cage of their own at 4 weeks - leaving the girls with the mum in order to avoid them mating too.

You might want to have a look at the following site which covers breeding dwarf hamsters:

http://www.angelfire.com/nh/HappyHamstery/DwarfHamsterBreeding.html

Good luck with this
Regards