hi,

some of you might have caught my recent post about which pet would be suitable for my 5 yr old.

well we settled for hamsters after all.

we did a bit of research and although siberian are better for 1st time hamster owners we decided that because of our limited space we would chose a smaller breed of hamster and decided on russian hammys.
we were told by pet store that they are very social and are better paired up ( i read this myself before purchasing)

anyway we bought all the paraphanalia to make the hamsters a nice habitat but it seems our flip and flop just dont get on, they have had about 4 fights which has left me feeling a bit upset :(

the pair came from the same litter as far as i am aware, they certainly have lived together before we bought them so what has gone wrong?

should i leave them a couple of days to settle into their new environment or should i try and sort out which is the aggressor and return it to pet store?

i really dont know what i should do, wether this is normal behavior in new pets settling in to there new situation.

tried to find out some info on web but all it says is that these should get along just fine.

any information, i would be grateful.

lisa x

Hi Lisa- this seems to happen a lot- Keely has recently had to seperate her two girls as their fights wre getting pretty hairy.

I'm no expert on hammies (have owned them in the dim and distant past but always much preferred gerbils myself because they are usua;;y more sociable), but I always understood that gerbils were were happier in pairs whereas hamsters tend to prefer being on their own.

When you bought your two, I am guessing they were in a largish glass tank in the pet shop? They've now been transferred to (I am guessing?) a smaller cage - vertainly a new environment and being somewhat territorial, I am presuming they are vying for space and settling into their new environment.

Suspect if they feel they are too close to each other for comfort and there is nowhere for them to have their own personal space, this aggressive/dominance behaviour will continue - but I'll hand you over to the hamster experts now for their view on this. Hope it can be resolved - if not, might be a good idea to return one to the store sooner rather than later - Ive been bitten by enough hamsters to know what damage their long incisors can inflict.

hi katkin,

from what i have read and from what the bloke in pet store said it all depends on which breed of hamster you chose as wether they are social or like being alone.

we have bought russian dwarf and they are social.

to be honest the cage we have isnt all that much different in size from the tank with regards to floorspace, we bought a crittertrail so they had plenty of stimulation and space. so there is plenty of space for them to seperate if they want to.

i did make 2 nesting areas as soon as i realised they werent going to huddle together.

im hoping its just a case of them getting used to their new environment.

havent seen them fighting so far this morning so hope they have calmed down a bit. after all yesterday was a busy day for them they were probably a bit excited.

im going to give them a couple of days and see what happens.

obviously if the fighting doesnt seem to be getting better or it gets any worse i will seperate them and take the aggressor back to store (i did distinguish which was the bully but as there is no real difference in appearance not sure which it is now, i would have to seperate straight away after another scuffle.

if there are any experts out there that can give me their ideas on what i should be doing that would be fab.

thanks, lisa x

Hi,

I would be inclined to perhaps put the cage in your room at night, so that you'll hear them if they do kick off. At least it gives you a chance to split them before anything too nasty occurs.

You've already got separate sleeping areas, sometimes separate feeding bowls can help too.

Is the cage the Cittertrail X? If so, to be honest when the Russians get bigger (which they do), I think you'll have more trouble than ever before if you haven't already split them up. The cage doesn't really give them enough room to get away from one another.

If you have to take one back to the pet shop, one on its own will be ok.

Good luck.

maybe they are establishing a nre top dog, seeing as they have been moved to a fresh place etc?

phoned pet store, they have suggested i take them back to be checked over etc.
the russian dwarfs should be living together ok but obviously ours have to be different:rolleyes:
i have had to take the "victim" out and put it in the bloody running ball with some bedding so they arent together (dont like doing this as theres no space but i dont want it being attacked again)

the crittertrail i have has 3 levels its not one of the extreme ones but the bully keeps finding the other for a bit of a scuffle, poor thing!

phoned pet store, they have suggested i take them back to be checked over etc.
the russian dwarfs should be living together ok but obviously ours have to be different:rolleyes:
i have had to take the "victim" out and put it in the bloody running ball with some bedding so they arent together (dont like doing this as theres no space but i dont want it being attacked again)

the crittertrail i have has 3 levels its not one of the extreme ones but the bully keeps finding the other for a bit of a scuffle, poor thing!

I'd say that's very wise, unlike most animals which have little 'scuffles', Russian Dwarf Hamsters will fight to the death and you could come down one morning to a rather nasty mess.

The pet shop was right, they are social and should be kept in pairs if possible. However we had two males at one point that had to be kept in separate cages because they wouldn't get on with any other hamsters and they lived long and happy lives on their own.

I'm still a bit wary of these with a 5 year old though - they tend to be a bit more vicious and known for their biting than siberian hamsters. Once handled and tame, Siberian hamsters remain that way for life. Russian hammies can 'regress' if not handled for a while.

I had two russian dwarves, eric and ernie (On account of their short fat hairy legs! lol) and they had to be separated, because of their scrapping.

The larger hammies definitely need to be kept separate, but dwarves can be kept together. Now, that's the thing:- they "can" live in pairs... it doesn't necesarily mean they will.

Freya's Mum...

Do you need another cage, for one of them? I have a spare, since my boys went over the Rainbow bridge, if it'll help?

hello
my hammies are russian dwarfs, from the same litter, lived together from birth.

they were fine together for the first week in their new home, they slept together, followed each other around, then after a week or so they started to scrap at playtime.

we have a fort for them, and theyd find each other in the fort and scrap until we prised them apart. eventually they started staying at opposite ends of their cage.

we kept them in our room for a few nights to listen out for any scrapping.

we had to seperate them in the end. they each have their own cage, and one plays in the fort whilst the other is in their ball, then they swap.

dwarfs are sociable, but alot of them do end up fighting and having to be split up. which means twice as much work!

two cages to clean
two seperate play times
etc etc

thanks everyone for advice.

and plain talker for the offer of another cage.

took Flip and Flop back to petstore and sorry to say i had to let them both go back.

the bully is now being kept seperate as he has turned pretty nasty and is biting everything in site. and the other had perked up and is back with the other hamsters doing fine. i have to say i felt sooooooo bad letting them go.

we now have a syrian hammy named Freddy, he has settled in just fine and Freya loves him to bits.

felt really guilty about giving up on the other hamsters that i HAD to spoil our new boy.

lisa x

p.s if any one has a medium size hammy ball and would like to swap for 2 almost brand new small ones please get intouch or will sell them half price of what i paid for them yesterday (£1.50 each or 2 for £3)