my hampster had babies

Question
i have two supposoflly both female hampsters in a large wire cage. today my daghter discovered  that one of witch has given birth but we have no idea how to tell who the mother is. the 2 pups we saw were lying out in the middle of the cage floor and both hampsters have remained in the small house for most of the day so we arent sure ow many there are. how can we tell the mother and should we try to remove the other female? is it very likely the pups will survive?

Answer
Hi Amanda,

    I am guessing that these are Dwarf hamsters? If so, you should be able to tell which one is the Mother by looking at her tummy and her teats. The area around the teats will be wet looking and usually there will some hair missing. As for the 2 pups lying in the middle of the cage, if Mom does not come get them, they will die. If a Mother hamster feels that there is too many pups for her to take care of she will either abandon some or eat some. This is in their nature.
    If you have had these 2 hamsters for awhile (longer than 3 weeks), it is very likely that one of them is a male and he should be removed (for at least a week) only because a female Dwarf will come right back into heat once she has given birth and the result would be that she could end up giving birth again in 18 days. This can be very stressful on the female.
    If they are both females and you can not tell which one is the Mother, then by all means leave them together.
    Here is a site that may help you determine the sex of the hamsters:   http://russiandwarfhamsters.tripod.com/hams/id19.html
    If you have anymore questions, please write again.

Thank you for writing!