hamster friends

Question
when my russian dwarf hamster had babies she shared a cage with another female, but because of the babies was advised to remove her from the same cage.
now that the babies have left there mum would it be safe to put the 2 females back together or wont they remember each other and fight.  

Answer
Hi Sharon.

I've heard some people comment that once a dwarf hamster has been alone for a certain period of time, they become territorial and defensive over their cage and will not tolerate cagemates.

This has not been my experience, however.  Breeding dwarf hamsters at my job, I often have to do some cage shuffling, and once I had to break up a very strongly bonded pair in order to do a test mating and find out which of the pair was carrying the gene for a certain color.  Since the pair was strongly bonded, neither would immedately tolerate a new cagemate at all, even a cage mate of the opposite sex.  I had to leave them both in separate cages with no cagemate for a week, and after a week, I switched cages with the new female I wanted to pair him with.  I switched their cages every day so they smelled each others' scent, and when I put them together on the third day, he was perfectly willing to accept the new female.  She was a bit more wary of him, but they settled in with no fighting.  She now has nine babies and is once again by herself (since it was a test breeding and I didn't know what I was going to get I didn't want him to breed her again when she was giving birth) and he is with yet another different female, getting along fine.

So, I think if you go slowly and introduce them to each other like they've never laid eyes on each other before (because as far as we know, that's what they may think, she may well have forgotten her sister entirely), you should be fine.  Switch their cages back and forth every day or so, and on the third or fourth day, introduce them in neutral territory that neither feels compelled to defend, such as the bathtub.  (Make sure if you have an open drain that they can't fall in!)  Keep an eye on them for about fifteen minutes.  In the meantime, have the cage you'd like to house them both in newly cleaned with new bedding, and if no squabbling or fighting ocurrs, put them in their new home!

You'll still have to be aware of what they are doing.. if you hear excessive squealing or squeaking, it probably means one is having a go at the other.  (Although sometimes they do a lot of posturing and noise making before they've even been touched.)

All three species of the russian dwarf hamsters are social and prefer company to solitude, so I can't imagine you having too much trouble, although no two animals are garaunteed to get along just because they are of the same species.  :)

Thanks for the question, and feel free to contact me again if you have any problems!