female killed her mate

[athirah]

hi.
my class just bought a pair of winter white russian hamster(according to the shop owner) 3+ weeks ago(i think so)...the female is somehow a little agrasive and active than the male (the male was so really, really tame..it likes to 'squeek'<==his noise)..at first, the're ok..but then after 10 days, they started to fight...the female started the fight actually...(it's school holiday, and we keep pasing the hamsters from one house to another)-and then i got the hamster after 5 days.. (on that day only i knew that the hamsters we're fighting, b'cause nobody told me before)i can see that the female are getting bigger than the male...after two days the male died..(and he was soooo thin)....soo..we all want to know whether the female(that is still alive till now) can cause breed with a new male...(according to the shop owner,she was 3weeks old,same as the dead male)..please help..b'cause we want to see their babies!!!

[scarie_one]

I'm not sure about that breed(not that you can trust someone that works at a pet shop to identify breed correctly) but with Syrians you can only put them together when the female is in heat. She was obviously the dominant hamster in the cage and was making it so he wasn't able to get any food. I wouldn't really recommend breeding hamsters in a classroom anyway since its stressful enough for both without children gawking at them and tapping on the cage.

[Deanna]

Um . . . maybe your teacher should consider doing the next time she decides to pass animals from home to home. This soudns like a fun idea, but in reality, it's very stressful on hamsters. They need a few days of being alone in new environment to get adjusted. So, when they visit new homes constanty, there is no doubt they are overwhelmed by the array of visitors who can't resist to play with them. Why don't they just pass around stuffed animals like when I was a kid?

[!MICHELLE!]

here's something you should try: have two different cages, (one for the male, one for the female), then when you breed them put them in a third cage with the smell of no other animals(and make sure the cage has new toys,beds...)then put the two hamsters in there at the same time, so it starts off with the smell of both hamsters. ( if this doesn't work, nothing probably will) If you do end up with babies remember, some breeds may eat thier young, especially the fathers!(we once had a class gerbil that ate all eight of her young for no reason http://petshub.com/ubb/frown.gif )