PMCHP : SH - 2

Belle's First Litter

Last Tuesday, Belle finally managed to give birth to 4 healthy pups. Guess Ben is not so bad after all at being a stud hamster. The images were taken on the first day of birth.

And these taken today, the third day after birth.

Golden Hamster - Hamster Mixed Seed

I've been using this snack for a very long time. Even though the name states golden hamster (as for syrian), but campbells also enjoy much of it. Usually, the hamsters will go for the sunflower seed and a small ball of snack. Once they got the small ball, it will be enjoyed alone and sometimes the hamsters will fight to get it as there isn't much of it in the packet.

The clip below shows my earlier baby hamsters fight to get the snack ball.

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.