please help me, i had to take a 2 week old runt dwarf hamster away from its mom and i don't want it to die, i think she was trying to kill it as she was dragging it around. she's very agiated since i cleaned the cage and i am even afraid she won't care for her other 4 babies....all she does is run around the cage. how do i feed them if i do have to take care of all of them? also, why would the mother reject them after 2 weeks???
2007-03-17 15:45:25 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous in Pets ➔ Other - Pets
in everything i read it said that it is absolutely ok to clean the cage after 14 days. the info was from dwarf breeders so i would think they know what they are talking about....the mother is not just carrying them around, she's running frantic with them in her mouth. i am sure the larger ones will survive, i do have a medicine dropper from when my children were small and the runt took a little of that and some small food....
2007-03-17 16:51:21 · update #1
Was the mother dragging this one around or was she carrying it? Mother Hamsters will carry their young from one spot to another one by one when she decides to go to another part of the cage to sleep, same thing goes when it's time for her to feed them. Watch her and if she is not taking care of the rest of the babies then you need to go out fast and get a very tiny eye drop thing, it will look like a turkey baster, so you can feed them milk with it.
2007-03-17 15:53:16 · answer #1 · answered by Wolfmanscott 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Read the information in the link below on orphaned hamsters, it's very helpful especially where your are 2 weeks old. If mom does reject this oone fully and any others you'll be prepared.
Once you cleaned her cage she needs to rearrange her family, leave the baby with her or she will kill it because you removed it from her too soon. We do forced feeding using the moms milk by holding the mom and putting the baby on her to nurse. The reason a mom usually kills a runt, is that there is a lot of times something internally wrong with it and she can sense it. If the runt is more then half the size of the others it has a good chance to make it, however if it's less then half the size it usually doesn't. A rescued mom and 4 babies from 3 weeks ago had a runt less then half size of the other 3 , we tried hand feeding, forced nursing and nothing worked- she died on the 5th day we had her.
Did you leave some of the old litter with the babies after removing them and putting them back? If not you should have. The old litter has the babies and her scent on it and this makes her think nothing went on in her cage. If you removed all the litter and put only fresh litter in the cage, she is going batty thinking she's in a new environment. As you see this has greatly upset her. Give her some quiet time alone with her babies, you can even drape a towel over the cage to give her privacy for a day or so. At 2 weeks the babies should have started eating some of the small seed in the food and have started to drink water from the bottle if it's low enough for them to reach. Make sure the bottle is low for the babies to reach, don't put a water bowl in for them, they'll drown. At 4-5 weeks they can go to their new homes. Separate mom from the boys, put boys in their own cage, girls can stay with mom unless she fights with them. Never haouse any Syrian with another Syrian after 4 months, it's a disaster in the making if you do.
2007-03-17 19:05:26 · answer #2 · answered by wolfinator25840 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
First of all the mothers will carry the litter from place to place. Also sometimes they will eat the runt even if they are 4 weeks old. They do this because if they were in the wild the runt would normally not survive so the mother would kill them so they would not die suffering. Since you cleaned the cage so early the mother will be upset and you should make sure not to touch anything or her litter. Now that you took the runt out of the cage you should be sure not to put him back. See if he will drink from a bottle, if you use a dish he can drown. Then see if he will eat food, if not there are formula's you can look up on the Internet that will substitute for milk, but if you can get him to eat regular food he might be better off.
2007-03-17 16:08:15 · answer #3 · answered by Firefly 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Why in the international might you place some a youthful create right into a cage with adults that are actually not it is mom?! That replaced right into a great mistake. the 1st ingredient you are able to desire to do is handle the wound. hose down a paper towel and *very* gently wipe the fur as sparkling as you are able to, besides as dab the wound. you are able to no longer positioned something onto a hamster like an ointment, because of the fact if ingested the toddler will die. you are able to desire to get it it is very own cage with a heating pad below, circulate to the shop and purchase kitten formulation and feed it each and every 2 hours for the subsequent week from a spoon, permit it drink as much because it is going to take. At 3 weeks old you are able to desire to start sprinkling real nutrition into the cage, in basic terms positioned it on the bedding reason it could no longer attain the bowl. additionally comprise skinless apple products because of the fact it facilitates the hydration yet whilst it does not consume it for 3 days take it out assume for it to no longer make it because of the fact it ought to get an infection and then there is no longer something you're able to do for it. At 5 weeks, if it is nevertheless alive, you are able to attempt to reintroduce it to the community yet whilst the different men are nevertheless being aggressive in the direction of it take it out. If it extremely is a male you are able to desire to take mom out of the cage whilst he gets 5 weeks old because of the fact he ought to breed along with her
2016-10-02 07:34:50 · answer #4 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
she would reject them because u cleaned the cage. you are not supposed to disrupt her at all. but seeing as how whats done is done, My rat had babies, and she ignored one for a good five hours, i called the vet, and she game me the recipe of how to make 'milk' so its possible to feed them yourself. but call the vet just to be sure. and also, this is going to sound odd, but you have to stimulate the genital area with a rough cloth or paper towel or something to stimulate them to go to the bathroom. it sounds odd, but just do it. call the vet as well....good luck DO NOT FEED THEM MILK THAT PEOPLE DRINK its a special mixture
2007-03-17 15:53:39 · answer #5 · answered by MMiles 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
mix some whole milk with some water so its not so thick, keep them clumped up in a pile so they all stay warm, feed them four or five times a day. good luck, AND DO NOT SCARE THE MOTHER!
2007-03-17 16:59:59 · answer #6 · answered by Mango Muncher 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I have heard that you can try giving baby mice Pedialite.
2007-03-17 15:50:54 · answer #7 · answered by Jacqueline M 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋