baby hammies in action

for three weeks now we've had baby hamsters, five in fact. 3 are white 2 are brownish-grey in colour. but sad things have been happening with the little bundles of joy. one white baby disappeared, a grey one couldn't open its left eye( but it soon did after 2 days) and the mother got pregnant again.

we had only just noticed that the mother was getting "fatter" but didn't think that it was pregnant so we shook off that idea. the nature of pregnant female animals is that they will eliminate all competition for the new batch of babies to grow.

one morning, paul and i found the pregnant mothers clawing and biting of the flesh of a white baby. by this time the babies had opened their eyes and had fur on their backs. when we got the baby out of the mother's frenzy, the baby was bloodied and lost a lot of fur on its body. we separated the other babies fearing they may also end up the way their sibling did. the hammies were already weaned and could live on their own, lucky for them. its siblings had tried their best to clean its wounds but to no avail. the torn baby had died 10 minutes later.

20-30 minutes later, i saw a new batch of babies being born. the litter was at least a size of 4 hammies. we have been covering the cage once again with newspaper. after the first batch of babies, we aren't so excited as the first time but now feeling worried as now we know how fast hammies breed.

"Separation"'s the word now for the couple to prevent more births. we are planning on selling the 3 baby hammies once they are at least 2 months old.

oh well, the world's never fair anyways...