I am probably getting a Golden Hamster. My brother also wants to get one as well, and my mom said that was okay. I would like to do some more research beforehand though. Some of the sites I've been looking at say that two females can't live together, because they will fight. It also said that hamsters are solitary animals and barely ever run into eachother in the wild. Anyway, if this is so, then at the pet store, why are 5 Golden Hamsters housed in the same cage at a time with no problem. I'm mainly wondering why everything is fine at the pet store with a few hamsters in one cage, but you can't have two in a cage when they are yours? Sorry this sounds kind of confusing. Are there any experienced hamster owners out there, preferibly Golden Hamster owners that can give me some personal experience?
Thanks so much!
Answers:
Hi Sara.
I completely understand why the living conditions at your local pet store may be confusing you and make no mistake they are misleading. I currently work at a PetSmart and because of the limited amount of space available in the store, we generally house a maximum of six Syrian hamsters to a cage. A majority of the time we get our hamsters in at a young age, many of whom are litter mates and they are usually sold before they reach sexual maturity. Often times though, we have hamsters with us long enough that reach sexual maturity and we are no longer able to house them together. It is not at all uncommon for us to treat hamsters with fight wounds that range from anything to minor bite wounds to very severe injuries such as a lost eye. These animals are removed from our sales floor and placed in our Isolation room where they can recover. If an animal has permanent injuries (i.e. scars, missing toes, etc.) or in the case of a Syrian is too old to be safely placed on our sales floor with the other hamsters, they are often adopted out free of charge to employees or customers.
Now that you've gotten a glimpse of what it's like "behind the scenes" at your local pet store, I would highly advise you to stick with what you initially read. 99% of adult Syrian hamsters will fight to the death regardless of whether or not they were raised together. If both you and your brother really want hamsters, perhaps you should look into a species of dwarf hamster instead as they are social creatures and are more likely to coexist peacefully.
because the people who work at petstores don't know **** about animals
well, most likly in all animals two females will get along great its two males that you dont want to get together. hope this helps :)
It is true that adult hamsters should be kept as solitary pets. They tend to fight and seriously injure one another.
Yes, pet stores do keep multiple hamsters in one cage. This is most because it is a space-saving, cost-efficient way of keeping the animals in the store. These animals will still fight amongst themselves. I actually adopted a 3-legged hamster from a pet store; the other hamsters in the cage beat him up really bad and a vet had to amputate his leg. He is actually rather lucky. Many people I know had their second hamster die after the other turned on it.
It would really be best if you kept only one hamster in a cage. Sorry! Rats and mice are more social with each other, if you would rather have two pets together than two separate hamsters.
I've heard multitudes of horror stories from hamster owners who tried keeping Syrian (golden) hamsters together in one cage--they range from just cuts and scratches to one hamster getting their head chewed off. Chances are they won't get along.
Pet stores have a bad reputation for making animals LOOK nice and happy, all together in one habitat, but the reality is that this can lead to pregnancy in females of any species and squabbles in Golden Hamsters.
EDIT: As an alternative, you could get Dwarf hamsters, which are usually OK in pairs.
Rats and mice also enjoy companions =).
Syrian (aka. Golden, Black Bear, Teddy Bear, Regular) hamsters, when mature, will fight to the death no matter what gender they are. What has you confused are the Dwarf Hamsters that will sometimes tolerate another hamster of the same sex. These hamsters are different in that they are somewhat social. The reason why Syrians are housed together in the pet stores are because it saves space and the litter mates will get along fine until they mature and begin to mate AND fight. The ones you see in the pet stores are still immature and in a few weeks time will become solitary, territorial animals.
Sometimes pet store will put a little dose of something in the water bottle to keep the hamsters drugged so they don't fight as much or get stressed and die. They would never admit that though, you have to find that out from a former worker ;)
no once they reach a certain age, they fight each other, when they are in a petstore, they are still young enough to be housed that way, once they hit 3 months of age no. I have 3 syrians,all in their own cage of course.
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I've owned Syrian hamster for over 30 years and bred them as a hobby for over three years. Keeping Syrian hamsters together is cruel and makes them very difficult to tame. Some hamsters become terrified victims, others become the aggressors. Neither will make good pets after that. Pet stores are in business to make money and none of their animals are kept under ideal conditions. You can't see the bite scabs on their hamster's backs, but you can feel them - if those hamsters even let you touch them.
ReplyDeleteI have kept sisters together in the past until adulthood, just to see it if would be ok. In every case, they do begin to fight and it gets worse as time goes by. I've always seperated my hamsters before there were any major injuries. However, I have had an adult hamster escape and fall into another adult hamster's cage. The results were horrible and I've made sure it won't happen again. One Syrian hamster per cage, anything else is cruel.
Dwarf hamsters can be kept together, but Syrian hamsters are better pets! :-)
Today I got 2 Syrian hamsters, both females. I am only a kid but I am always always always researching different breeds of animals. Anyway, I wanted to get a hamster and I specifically wanted a Syrian. Well, I had explained to the store clerk that I had read multiple articles about Syrian hamsters and they had all said it wasen't safe to keep more than one together. I also explained what size my cage was and she said it would be perfect and they'd be fine if they got them both. Well, I took her word and got both. They were OK at first, but after a few hours they started getting a little jealous of eachother and territorial (one of them had scent glands). So, I decided to seperate them since I also got a new, bigger cage today and still had my old one. Now they're fine, but I live in an apartment and the deal I made with my mom is the hamsters have to stay in my room. So, now I feel bad because I may have to give one back because I don't have all the room in the world.
ReplyDeleteSo, morale of the story is you cannot cannot cannot put two Syrian hamsters together despite what the store clerk says. In general, you really shouldn't mix any hamsters together. I once got Dwarf hamsters since I had read they got along together (I got them from the same cage at the same time at the same pet store, so it's not like I got two from different places) and they too fought and ones head got chewed off. So spare the heart break and sadness, and the pain of the little hamster and just get seperate cages. I hope this helped!