Here is Tutu keeping her pups warm. OK, so I didn't have a baby...But imagine our surprise when Kris looked into our hamster cage last night and found about a dozen little squirming babies! Santa supposedly gave Alyson and Kourtney two sister hamsters, but boy, was he wrong!
You think the gestation of rabbits is short (about 30 days)...the gestational period for a dwarf hamster is 18-30 days with 21 days being the average. And they can breed within 24 hours after the female gives birth! Okay, so that may be a little more information than you would have liked, but it's amazing what we found out on the Internet last night after our little find.
Another pretty incredible piece of info about Siberian Dwarf hamsters is that unlike many other rodent species, the male helps out in the rearing of the pups. We were concerned that he might eat the babies (we still can't tell if "Twinkles" or "Tutu" is the male). But, we are lucky that's not typically the case for our breed of hamster. Our hamsters have divided the litter in half and are busily transporting them and taking care of them.
Then there is the question of what we are going to do with these little things once they are old enough to wean (in about 4 weeks)? The pet store Santa got the hamsters from won't take them because they have to get their hamsters from licenced breeders? If a store in Michigan sales ferrets or rabbits they are required to get all their critters from licenced breeders.
So, if they should survive, do we have any takers? Please comment if you would like to take one off our hands...we don't suggest two because you never know...you may be in our situation a couple months from now!
