Seeing if my female hamster is in season.

Question
thanks for the extremely long answer :-D
im not sure which path ill choose the taming 1 or the babies growing up to be like their mother. thought im still curious how do i know if a the female hamster is in the heat? in the season? (im 100% sure she is a female)
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Followup To

Question -
I read articles on this site and found out that a way to see if the female hamster is in season is to stroke her back from head to tail. I tried that but one i cant do it right because she keeps moving and also nothing happens. is there another way i can see if she's in season?

also this is another question i had but i didnt wanted to post another question thing but how do i tame my female hamster? she keeps trying to bite me whenever i want to pick her up from the aquarium. and is that kind of behavior from her might prevent her from breeding?

Answer -
Hello Denisa, thanks for the questions.

First of all, before you breed, I would strongly urge you to read the Breeders Code of Ethics as written by members in good standing of the Internet Hamster Association of North America, or IHANA, found at the following URL:
http://groups.msn.com/InternetHamsterAssoc/breederscode.msnw

If your female hamster does not have a good temperament, you will not want to breed her, because the babies will be the same way.  There is a genetic predisposition and they also learn the behavior from their mother.

You should only breed animals with good temperaments, this not only pretty much ensures the babies will be easy to handle, but also a mother who is easy to handle will not be as prone to commit infanticide and kill her litter just because you are around.  If you breed your female now, remember that you will have to start handling the babies around fourteen days old to get them socialized to handling, and that mom will be constantly hovering around trying to hurt you, and may hurt the babies if you touch them.  But if you do not touch them, you are going to have babies that are also bitey and hard to handle.  You see the problem.  Some of my tamed females nip when I handle their babies, so I can't imagine trying to socialize a litter of pups from a female who doesn't like you right off the bat!

Check your female for signs of season every day for six days.  If at the end of six days you still have not elicited any "in heat" responses from her (they go into heat every four days), then you need to re-sex your hamster to be sure you have a female.

Taming hamsters requires a lot of patience and time.  I would first of all suggest that you switch her to a cage that is not an aquarium, at least for taming purposes, so that you can go IN at her when you pick her up, instead of DOWN on her.  Going DOWN on a prey animal reminds them of a predator (like a hawk or an owl) and they don't like it.

Also remember to always cup a hamster when you pick it up, don't grab it around it's middle.  Being prey animals, they usually don't like this either (although docile animals with good temperaments will allow it more than un-tamed animals).

To tame any animal, you need to take baby steps and have the patience of Job.  If it were me, I would start by simply sitting near the cage and talking to the hamster, around dusk when they are more likely to be active.  (Remember, hamsters are nocturnal and would rather sleep during the day.)  She may initially run and hide just by your being near, but they *are* curious little critters and often come out to inspect things.

Just sit by the cage for a week.  Maybe more.  You know the hamster better than I do, you will know more than I could tell you if you notice any improvement or difference in her behavior.  When you are sitting near the cage, try your hardest not to make any sudden, jerky movements or loud noises.  Also, don't stare at her.  She may not even see it (rodents don't have great eyesight), but then again she may, and any prey animal feels uncomfortable being stared at.  (Think of a cat stalking, and you understand why.)

When you put your hand in the cage, try to wait until she is already on the far side so you don't make her feel she needs to run, or bite.  You want your presence associated with as little stress and trauma as possible.  If she does bite, try your hardest not to move your hand (or at least not to remove it from the cage) until she moves away, so she doesn't learn that biting gets her the results she wants (the hand going away).

Unfortunately, you will probably have to traumatize her a bit to catch her in order to do routine cage cleaning, but if you shoo her into a cardboard tube and close both ends with your hands to transfer her instead of grabbing her, it will probably be much less traumatic for her.

Signs of improvement will likely be that she will not immediately run and hide at your voice or sounds near the cage, if she DOES run and hide she comes back out more quickly to investigate, or, in the most ideal situation, that she runs right up to the cage to see what's going on.  But that won't likely happen until round two..

The next step would be to remove all sunflower seeds from the food mix.  I know this is tedious, but it usually gets results.  You'll probably have noticed that hamsters are gluttons for sunflower seeds.  They love them.  They crave them.  They covet them.  Which is why YOU'LL want to control when your hamster gets them.  :)  Because then, you'll be the bearer of wonderful, great lovely edible treats everytime she sees you, and she will start to associate you with them instead of with fear.  You see?  :)

Start by simply poking the seeds through the bars of the cage to her.  After being deprived of sunflower seeds, she will very likely want them very badly.

Soon, she'll start to figure out that.. Hey!  Hands mean SUNFLOWER SEEDS.  Hands are GOOD.

If all goes well by this point, she'll likely run up to the cage side when she hears your voice every time without fail, so that she won't miss out on the goodies.

If so, move on to the next step, which is opening the cage door, and resting your hand, palm up, on the bottom, with a sunflower seed in it.  Lay your hand flat, don't cup it -if you cup it she may feel as though you're trying to trap her.  Make no move at any time to grab her.  Let her come to you.

Once she's confidently taking the seed from your palm (should take a few days or so) up the ante a bit by moving it from your palm to your wrist.  She'll probably have to actually climb into your hand to retrieve the seed now.

Again, do this excersize a few days, or until she does it confidently every time, and then move the seed up your arm a bit more.  Now she has to step onto your palm and move up your arm.

As you go through this, if she still seems a bit jumpy, you may want to work sitting inside of an empty plastic kiddie pool or somewhere else where, if she gets startled and runs up your arm and then leaps, she can't get far or run under furniture and be lost.

Eventually you should have a pet that at least doesn't mind being cupped in your hand.  She may never enjoy having fingers around her middle, but being cupped in two hands will probably not bother her.

If at any point you feel that you are not making progress or she has regressed, go back to the previous step and do it until you are satisifed that you may move on.

Patience is key!  But remember, some of them just don't like to be handled.  This excersize, if done right, may take anywhere from a month to three, but shouldn't take any longer than six.  If you have gone six months and she still extremely fearful or nippy, just let her be herself and love her for it just the same (but DON'T breed her).  You'll do her more harm than good trying to force the issue.

Also, I would like to encourage you to research your love of hamsters and your interest in breeding by joining the IHANA.  There you can network, and find a solid, reputable, established breeder in your area who can mentor you in hamster genetics, ideal pairings, and what traits to look for and foster in your animals.  They may also be able to give you good stock with which to start from.

You can find the IHANA's page at:
http://groups.msn.com/InternetHamsterAssoc/home1.msnw

Answer
I'm sorry about the long answer, but nothing about taming an animal is simple, and breeding is definately not, at least not when it's done right.

You know how to tell if a female hamster is in heat, you said exactly what one has to do in your original post.  :)
There shouldn't be any "doing it right", if she's in heat, then when you stroke her the length of her body she should "freeze" and plant her back legs a tad wider than the width of her body, thrust her rump up, and hold her tail straight up in the air.  The only thing you have to do is stroke her every evening (they generally mate in the evening, being nocturnal animals) for about six days.  Since they have a four day heat cycle, on one of those days she should be in heat.

Of course, this will be very hard to do with an animal that does not like you touching her, since you kind of have to touch her to elicit the response.  Not always, though, some people have observed it in their hamsters without touching them.

There is a chance that she is sterile and does not have the heat cycles that a fertile hamster would.  This would be extremely uncommon, however, but not unheard of.