dwarf mother hamsters

Question
1 empty cage for mothers and their babies. (before babies were being eaten)  today I checked and in the 2 cages connected together a new mom and 3 freshly born babies. I scooped the mom and 3 babies and put them in the "mommy" cage with the 1 mom and her 4 few week old babies.  the new mom in the new cage ran about leaving her babies. the old mom ran about checking out the babies and she stole them putting them in to her nest with the other 4 older babies. then she ran about the cage checking out the new mother that got added to her cage.they were really fighting so i separated them with a spoon-i had to take out the new mommy and leave her babies. I am hoping that the new babies in the nest are going to be adopted and feed by the mother who already has babies. do you think the babies will be taken in by the mom who stole them?

Answer
hi julie,

first of all, you should never EVER touch new born babies in the first 2 weeks, this is why she killed them. the mother will smell your scent on them and kill them immediately. moving them out of the nest she has built will also disrupt them and she'll reject them because she has no nest to look after them in.

however, the new mother may take on the new babies as her own, its not uncommon for them to adopt the new ones, but you will need to keep checking on them every day, DO NOT TOUCH THE BABIES AT ALL, unless they appear to be dead or dying.

you should not breed animals if you do not know what you are doing. this is cruel and terribly neglectful of you to be so careless with these hamsters.

I hope you will learn from this and next time you decide to breed your hamsters, you know exactly what your doing. you have caused stress and suffering to not only the babies but the mothers also. if you had done more research before you decided to breed them, this could have been avoided.

Joanne.

p.s. you should also have seprated the 4 week old babies into different cages, one for males and one for females. this should have been done a week ago.