How to take care of baby hamsters

Have a baby hamster that needs to be taken care of? Did the mother hamster abandon them or pass away? Or does she just need some help?

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• water
• eveporated milk
• small feeding syringe
• toilet paper
• millet

1. If there is no mother for the new born hamsters, which are born blind, deaf, and naked, you can try to nurse them to a mature age (about 21 to 28 days). You will need a small feeding syringe, you can most likely get one at a local PetsMart Banfeild vet for little or no cost, evaporated milk, water, millet and toilet paper.

2. First you need to make a warm bed for the hairless baby hamsters with the toilet paper. Just rip the toilet paper into strips for a bed so they can stay warm.

3. For feeding them you'll need the water, evaporated milk, which can be found in any baking section of a store, and the millet, which can be found at any pet store in the bird section, it is a stem of tiny seeds which they can eat when ready. First make a mixture of 50% water and 50% evaporated milk. The evaporated milk is for the nutrients they will need. the mixture needs to be warm (like babies milk) or they won't drink it. Use the syringe to try to feed them the mixture, try to handle them as little as possible as they are very fragile

4. Raising baby hamsters is a full time job if there is no mom hamster. They need to be fed with the mixture you made about every hour and if some don't make it they in to be removed as soon as possible. About the seventh or eighth, although still blind, they will start to wander around, this is when you can put the millet in for them to eat.

Tips & Warnings

• Around the twenty-first to the twenty-eighth day the boys and girls have to be separate unless you want more babies.
• Avoid hamster 'fluff' for bedding found in pet stores, baby hamsters can get stuck in it, lose a limb, or suffocate.

[georgelarson]

on 11/3/2008 Good information on how to care for hamsters. Thanks.