Recalling my first breeding experience
My first breeding experience incurred as a surprise to me one day in mid 2002 when my Polar give birth to 4 pups. I was feeding Ah Boy and Polar when I realised that there's some movement in the back of their hut. Taking out the hut, I saw 4 moving red "beans" in the cotton wool and screamed in delight. Being a teens back then, I have no idea how to take care of both the mother and the pups and went on touching the pups with my bare hands. Polar went nuts and refuse to feed the pups and I was scolded by my parents for touching the pups. Furious by the neglecting Polar and scared that that pups might die, I went online and search for tons of hamster pup care information....... such was rare back then as there's no such thing as well-known forum such Yahoo Answers nor detailed Wikipedia on hamsters.
Watching pup birth for the 1st time in my life during my early adult life
To give birth, the Mother hamster need a lot of strength and support to give birth the natural way without painkiller Seriously, seeing my one of mother hamsters in labour pain and the joy of live pups born in front of me, I truly understand what does it means being a grandparent of my hamster pups.....
Sorry for the side tracking of my past memories.
And here's a few tips of how to notice a pregnant hamster:
- Pregnant hamster tends to eat a lot and sleep a lot.
- Pregnant hamster also tend to exercise slower than usual.
- Pregnant hamster (especially first-timer mother) tends to be in super grouchy mood if you want to carry it especially via tummy hold method. They tend to bite the holder most likely if you carry them this way. (Recommend : scoop/platform method)
- Pregnant hamster will have their tummy getting bigger especially towards their pregnancy is due soon.
As such, depending on the species of the hamsters that you have - I strongly recommend you to split your Father syrian/chinese hamster but Father drawf winter/robo/pudding hamsters are well-known to be remain within the cage and help Mother hamster with her pregnancy/pup raising.
Some hamsters are known to have delay their pregnancy but usual pregnancy period is around 21 days. Most pregnancy occurs during early hours of the morning or evening because that's the period where most hamsters are active.
Things to note during milking period of the pups:
- Try moving the cage to a darker/quieter location of the house so that both Mother/pups will not be stress out.
- Avoid touching both Mother hamster and pups for the touch 2 weeks.
- Pups will open their eyes around their 10th day.
- Give nutritional food to Mother hamster to ensure she have enough milk to feed her pups especially if her litter is big.
- Food to consider : Hard boil eggs, milk, cheese, butter, sunflower seeds.
- Only clean the toilet section of the cage and leave the rest of the cage untouched whereas possible
- Most pups will only wean (milk-free) from 14-21 days.
- I strongly recommend only separate from Mother hamster after the pups have fully gone to solid food in order to have healthy pups. I realised that most pups sold at pet stores/ online are not properly wean and hence hand feeding is still required when needed. Improper weaning will result in unhealthy hamster.
- Only touch pups who have wean properly. However should one require to take the pups out due to some emergencies, use a spoon or something similar to gently scoop out the pups.
- The moment if there's any fighting between Father hamster and almost weaned pups, separation of Father hamster is required so that the pups will be safe as Father hamster have the tendency to kill young male pups and rape young female pups to ensure that he is the King of the community.
For pups abandoning by Mother hamster: please refer to this article : Abandoned hamsters pups helpline
Remarks : I will try to touch on a sensitive topic on breeding before my trip to Japan by end of the Mar.
No comments:
Post a Comment