Raising Pups : The Importance Of Healthy Diet

When you found out that your hamster is pregnant, it is important that she must be given with enough and nutritious food in order to make sure the pups born later are healthy. Female hamster with not enough nutrients in her food while pregnancy may resulted the pups born small and maybe die later. The mother is lucky if the number of the pups is small such as 2 or 3. But if the number is big like 7 and more, she maybe in trouble because she has many mouths to feed and her pups may die one by one.

Last night, my friend asked me to take take care one of her mother hamsters. I've made her case as an example of the importance of taking care of the mother hamster while during and after her pregnancy. Her case is compared with my female hamster, Lizzy :

1. Lizzy - As I've written in my earlier post, she has given birth to 2 pups and manage to raise them well and healthy, and cute too. During the time, I make sure she's been taking care of well. She's not much of a problem because this is her fourth pregnancy.

2. Mother 2 - The hamster is my friend's. This is her first litter and she has 3 pups. They were born on the same day as Lizzy's litter.

3. Mother 3 - This one gave birth to 5 pups, on the same day as Lizzy and Mother 2 too, but sadly she died four days later. I've asked my friend to mix her pups together with Mother 2's. Luckily, everything went well except that the mother had to feed 8 pups.

After I brought home Mother 2, 3 of her original babies were mixed with Lizzy's. At first I was afraid of Lizzy attacking the 3 babies but she treated them like hers too. The images below show the obvious difference of the size between Mother 2's babies and Lizzy's, even though they were born on the same day. And I think this is because of the mother's diet while pregnancy and also while raising the pups.





And these are the ones that with Mother 2. They are even smaller than the ones mixed with Lizzy's.

As for now, I'm hoping to see them grow bigger and healthy, and look cute too.

Lizzy's 4th Litter - Day 9

It turns out well for Lizzy's babies growing up because there's only two of them. That means they can have as much as they can the milk from her. I can notice that their belly quite big while they're feeding from Lizzy. Good for them.

LM Vita Vittles - Hamster Diet

LM Animal Farms Vita Vittles - Hamster Diet (5 lbs)

Campbell are not fussy eaters and they don't eat too much, except when they are babies. At the moment, I'm giving my hamsters LM Vita Vittles for their food. They seem to enjoy it . Usually I buy the 2 lbs packet but if there's extra budget, I would go for the 5 lbs packet.

Lizzy's 4th Litter

On 11th August, Lizzy gave birth to 3 pups after I have mixed her with Ben. The next day, I found the fourth babies, dead in the cage. I guess it's a result of a failed delivery and maybe there are a few more unborn pups because Lizzy's body still looks quite big. The same day, one of the three pups died, leaving 2 only till this day. The images of them below taken on the fourth day after birth.

Bedding

One of the most important factors to keep hamsters living well is their bedding, the absorbent layer in the bottom of the cage. It is important in choosing the perfect and suitable bedding for your hamster so that it will stay healthy and safe.

For almost a year, I've been using Chipsi Super for my hamsters' bedding. I find it very suitable and my hammies don't have health problems with it. If some water is put on it, it will absorb quickly and I don't have to worry if my hamsters will get wet belly. In addition, it's also cheap and can last for about 3 months (if you have 2 hamsters and the cage is not that big). In Kuala Lumpur, I notice that you can only get it at Pets Wonderland.

PMCHP : SH - 1

Before starting this blog, I managed to buy from a friend 10 hamsters age about 3 weeks and then sell them back on the net. Below are the pictures of them.

My Adult Hamsters

At the moment, I have 5 adult hamsters, all of them are campbell dwarves (consists of 3 females and 2 males). Technically, I've never handle them with hands, only then with the babies I practice it to teach them to get familiar with human hands so that they will be tame and don't bite.

First hamster is Jack, a male argente. He was bought through the net after I've decided to get serious in keeping hamsters and at the same time selling the babies. He's considered quite big and I wasn't sure of his age. He likes to eat and sleep, which maybe explains his body size. But, he's very good at being a stud hamster. Once a female hamster is put in his cage, he directly check her 'availability' and then do 'the business'.

Jack

The next hamster is Lizzy, a female red-eyed argente mottled hamster. After her first litter, I thought she was going to die since she looks hopeless and didn't eat and move too much. Because of that, I bought another female (already dead after giving birth). The next day, Lizzy is back to be active (guess I was fooled by her) and (surprisingly) can do back somersault. The pictures were taken during after she had her fourth litter.

Lizzy

When I was in Pets Wonderland (Midvalley Megamall), there was this beautiful and cute hamster. After being confirmed she is a red-eyed female, I bought and named her Hera. So far, she's still trying to get pregnant. At the moment, she's being put with Jack, hoping for babies to come soon.

Hera

I've been trying to get an all black female, just to see how the babies will turn out to look like. Then I got Belle, a female black campbell. Interestingly, I'm guessing she's a satin-haired campbell because the coat looks a bit glossy. She's now being put together with Ben, my other male.

Belle

As I mentioned earlier, Ben is a black-eyed white . I bought him the last from all the five. Up till now, I'm still waiting to see how he performs with the females. With Lizzy, she managed to have babies at the moment (2 pups).

Ben