blood drawn... now i'm annoyed.

[pixibubbles]

Please not no animals have been hurt (just me)

So... i got two chinese dwarf hamsters (bought for me NOT by me...) and there were both pretty sweet and friendly if a little jumpy and cage protective.

turns out that one of them is a little girl. they're now seperated.

in the last couple of days clover (standard and female) has started biting. HARD. they arent testing little nips or i'm a bit scared and warning you off... these are hard enough to draw blood. and i'm not doing anything to deserve it... i'll be feeding her or sat on the couch and she will run up to me and bite hard. or she'll be sat on my hand cleaning and will suddenly try and take a lump out of me

and she's getting a little bit podgy. i dont know if this is coz she's getting better food as she's now by herself and better nutrition (coz i feed properly) or coz she's pregnant.

She's also getting very vocal. like a little chattering snuffly noise a lot of the time (it's how i know when shes awake)

Anyone got any pictures of pregnant chinese dwarves in the early stages?

AND any ideas how to stop the biting? at the moment i just blow on her gently and tell her no... or sort of slip my finger nail in her mouth and sort of twist a bit to pry madam off.

i dont want to NOT handle her... she needs time out of her cage and i'm not going to put up with misbehaviour.

any comments or thoughts please?
x
Battered and nibbled pixi

[pinkpink33]

you're describing the bahaviour of my 2 campbells when they hit 12 weeks old exactly lol! they are different ages, and it took me 2 months to tame mitsy out of this, and now pepper's started too! neither of mine were pregnant. they chittered, they bit for no reason (im bleeding right now), even though they were both very friendly for a few weeks first.
the behaviour you describe does sound like a possible pregnancy though, and it's possible being as she lived with her bro. some people cant tell when a dwarf is pregnant, though it's probably more noticable in chinese as they're not round already! i dont think you can see them until a few days before they're due though. i would look out for more nesting behaviour, storing more food etc, and extra liveliness. if she starts making a huge nest, she probably is, so if you note this you should probably clean her out and give her loadsa nesting stuff.
she might just be getting a little chubby though, so i wish you no inbred babies! i dont have any pics, but i bet someone does!
the thing that worries me about it is that when my hams were going through the "teenage" thing (or whatever it was), they wernt happy to be in my hands at all, let alone cleaning themselves! i only have 1 ham who trusts me enough to clean herself on me (mitsy), so it sounds like clover is being moody. which worries me that she's pregnant.
best wishes anyway, hope it turns out ok :)

[CookieDough24]

Im not sure about Chinese dwarves, but if they are anything like Campbell's, you might have a pregnant female on your hands. How long were they together? Usually you only start to see more roundness in the belly when they are close ( about 3-5 days in my experience) to delivering. Also, some female hamsters who are the sweetest, sometimes become almost aggressive when pregnant. Just watch her in the next few days, you might just have babies on the way!

It's always hard when you're not expecting babies, but you did a great job of separating them as soon as you found out Clover was a female.

[pixibubbles]

thing is i dont know much about chinese dwarves; they were bought for me. if i had known ahead of time i would have read up on how to sex them etc and done it myself. as it was by the time i suspected and had time they had been with me for well over a week. they were together from birth til about 8 / 9 weeks old. i'm told peewee can breed now, but clover probably wonjt have until she is about 12 weeks. hopefully. fingers crossed, although she'/s getting lots of egg just in case.

BTW females get more active when they are pregnant? uh OH.

[CookieDough24]

Some hamster will get noticeably more active, like building a nest and hoarding food, while others take a calmer approach and seem to become almost lazy seeming. Like you, I don't know much about Chineses, but I would read up about breeding them and pregnant females. Good luck and keep us posted. :)