Female old enough to mate?

[Dallionz]

I want to breed my two Campbells dwarf hamsters. The male is older, but the female is fairly young. She is about 3 1/2 inches long. Can you tell me whether she is old enough to breed yet? I don't want to put them together if she is too young.

The other question is I tried to put her in with the male and female in another cage but she and the male fought. So she is in her own cage now. Will their previous fight have an effect on their future mating even if they are introduced in the evenings on neutral ground?

Thanks for any and all help!

[pEbBLePoO]

Dear Dallionz,

Size is not a very good gauge for age but in your case, 3.5inches is definately adult length and can be used for breeding. The thing about hamsters is that the females do not remain fertile their entire lives, so even so, i can't tell if she still is.

What i am concered about here is why you choose not to house them together. Even though campbells are social to each other, they will often only mix with those they have been with before sexual maturity, or with little babies that are introduced into the colony. This means that your two hamsters may fight instead of mate when they meet.

Breeding a younger hamster is also better than an older as it puts too much stress on the mother, much like in humans. Also, they have this pelvic bone thing that sometimtes overgrows once tehy are older and might cause some difficulties giving birth.

About them fighting, i'm not too sure what you are saying. did you put the female into the male's cage, or the other way around? and which one faught with which? try introducing them on a neutral territory and distracting them with food and the new environment. There may be non-bloody slight scratching for the first half hour or so. If they start a bloody fight, remove immedeatly.

The idea here is to try to disorientate the territorial one so that he doesn't feel the need to protect his turf. So if it's teh guy that's the bully, place him into the females cage instead. might also work.

If nothing works, guess tehy are too old to be introduced.

Goodluck!

[Dallionz]

Thank you for your response and help. I have two hamsters (male and female) living together. They have been for several months since I first got them. I was unable to keep the new one in there with them because their fights did draw blood. The male bit her nose horribly and I had to pull him off of her. So this is why she is housed separately. I did not intend to start breeding them when I got the first male and female but have deceloped the interest since then.

After thinking about it, I believe I will start a community of females and keep a couple of males separate to breed with the females in a neutral area. This way, I can control the breeding and choose which males I want to breed with which females.

Of course I will keep the male and female who have been living together in the same cage. They would upset if I separated them.

Thanks again!