Housing

Question
Hi, I'm about to get dwarf hamsters and I was wondering, which one is better. Two females living together, or two males living together? Also, will the cage need to be very large?

Answer
Dear Lily,
thank you for yur question.
I strongly recommend getting just one dwarf hamster. They do live as breeding pairs in the wild, but in captivity, even those often fight after some time. Pairs of the same sex fight in almost all cases. This is caused by lack of space to avoid each other even in big cages and they tend to change partners in the wild, which they cannot do in captivity of course.
If you are getting them from a pet shop, get a male because ver often pet shops don't separate males and females and many females are pregnant. I recommend getting one from a good breeder or even from an animal shelter or private rescue centres (google for "hamster rescue" with the town or area where you live).

In my opinion, the minimum for a dwarf hamster is a cage that's 30x15x15 inches long, wide and high. They love to run and dig, so old tanks make good hamster homes as long as the are no higher than wide to ensure proper ventilations. you can often buy them cheap at garage sales, also try looking in the ads in your local paper or online (www.craiglist.org for example) Cages made mainly from plastic (like the Crittertrail cages) are badly ventilated (may cause respiratory infections), the plastic can be deadly when chewed and swallowed and most of them are just way too small.
I hope I was of some help to you
Jennifer