# New hamster :|



## RockRomantic (Apr 29, 2009)

I acquired a hamster, long story. He seems okay, he was living with 3 other hamsters and is now alone, should I be looking into maybe another hamster (sorry I'm so used to just having rats)

He also has this lump on his back










Anyone had one similar on theirs? I'm going to get him in at a vets tomorrow.

He seems okay, a bit nervous but is lettin me handle just fine.

So, meet Bertie


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## loukodi (Oct 27, 2010)

Looks just like my old boy, cutie!

Hes a Syrian so he should be kept solitary anyway, the lump on his back could the result of a bite from one of the others. Good luck at the vets


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## RockRomantic (Apr 29, 2009)

After posting this, me and the fella decided to just foster Bertie until my friend can take him in, when we got up and started the day yesterday we had no plans or thoughts of a new critter being in the house. But, nothing goes to plan does it?

Bertie this morning










And well, we're keeping him permanently now. We've both fallen a bit in love with him. So I need to go shopping to buy a cage


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## RockRomantic (Apr 29, 2009)

loukodi said:


> Looks just like my old boy, cutie!
> 
> Hes a Syrian so he should be kept solitary anyway, the lump on his back could the result of a bite from one of the others. Good luck at the vets


Ah, thanks for that, I thought so


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## owns the beast (Mar 21, 2013)

Bertie is a gorgeous little fluffball. He shouldn't have been housed with other Syrians - they will fight and hurt/kill each other. I hope the lump is nothing serious. It's really good of you to take him in and I'm glad he's okay with you handling him as well.


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## RockRomantic (Apr 29, 2009)

owns the beast said:


> Bertie is a gorgeous little fluffball. He shouldn't have been housed with other Syrians - they will fight and hurt/kill each other. I hope the lump is nothing serious. It's really good of you to take him in and I'm glad he's okay with you handling him as well.


He lived with a female and 3 of their offspring which were all male  I won't post details but I'm surprised at how good condition he is in. My only problem is I know NOTHING about hamster so after I get home from the shops I'm going to have to do some reading


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## simplysardonic (Sep 1, 2009)

Aww he's landed on his little paws now! 

What everyone else has said is right, Syrians are solitary. Hard to tell on the pic, but could the 'lump' be his scent glands, they have one on each flank from what I remember.

He's a lovely looking lad, looks like a hammy I had when I was 9 called (originally!) Fluffy


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## Lil Miss (Dec 11, 2010)

wrong place for a scent gland SS, it looks to be on his back, near the spine, scent glands are one on each hip

i would guess that maybe the lump could be an abcess as a result of a bite from one of the other hamsters, as others have said syrians are solitary and will fight to the death if kept together so little bertie is very lucky indeed


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## Guest (Sep 2, 2013)

Cats are meant to be solitary but can also live in groups.

A syrian should not be housed with other syrians but despite what the experts say syrians can live together just as cats can.

I had two brothers these boys lived together for 3 years never fought, no problems either they loved eachother and snuggled together and I often had them out together. Now that I know better I would not house another syrian with another ever again.

Enjoy your Bertie he looks a lot like my Wollace she is the same pattern/colour but short haired.


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## RockRomantic (Apr 29, 2009)

Lil Miss said:


> wrong place for a scent gland SS, it looks to be on his back, near the spine, scent glands are one on each hip
> 
> i would guess that maybe the lump could be an abcess as a result of a bite from one of the other hamsters, as others have said syrians are solitary and will fight to the death if kept together so little bertie is very lucky indeed


Yeah that's exactly where it is just at the side of his spine.


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## Lil Miss (Dec 11, 2010)

Prowl said:


> Cats are meant to be solitary but can also live in groups.
> 
> A syrian should not be housed with other syrians but despite what the experts say syrians can live together just as cats can.
> 
> ...


cats and syrian hamsters are nothing alike, you were very lucky that your hamsters did not kill each other, please do not go around saying things like this though as you may well encourage others who do not know better to try this resulting in dead hamsters


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## Guest (Sep 3, 2013)

Lil Miss said:


> cats and syrian hamsters are nothing alike, you were very lucky that your hamsters did not kill each other, please do not go around saying things like this though as you may well encourage others who do not know better to try this resulting in dead hamsters


I'm fairly certain I also mentioned in my post that I wouild never do it again.

What I mean't was if cats can live with other cats even though perhaps they should not because they too are naturally solitary then why not hamsters???

If I felt for any second my boys were a danger to eachother I would not have left them together. The fact is they lived together for 3 years and never fought once they did in fact love eachothers company how they stayed like that I will never know but it happened.

I don't think people should be encouraged to keep syrians together as they can be very violent but I was very young at the time and didn't know until I joined a forum that hamsters are not meant to live together.

Its also important that anyone thinking of buying a syrian fully research the species so they know that syrians should live on their own.


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## Lil Miss (Dec 11, 2010)

again domestic cats and hamsters are nothing alike, cats are not truely solitary, that is why you get colonies of feral cats, syrians do not live in colonies, or groups, or even pairs, they live in burrows on their own.

female cats when in heat will call out for a mate, syrian hamsters will bite the males face off if he is unlucky, that is why syrians developed the "freeze" stance when their back is touched when on heat, it is a reaction to allow the male to safely mount the female without being attacked

do you need me to go on? you can not compare cats to hamsters, cats are coperative and tollerant of others, not social but not strictly solitary either, hamsters are solitary

cats were domesticated over hundreds of years by chosing to live on our land and work with us, over time it got so the more social animals stayed around and bred, as there were large groups hanging round the farms and ship yards (to catch the rats) and such, if they couldnt get on with a group life, they didnt breed, there fore natural selection led us to take in the more social of these animals and so on and so forth.
ALL syrian hamsters descend from just 2 animals that were wild caught in the desert, there as been no selection to make them more tolerant of each other because nature never intended it that way


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## Phoenix24 (Apr 6, 2013)

Those are the scent glands, you can tell because they are blackish and look a bit like a mole (not the furry burrowing animal kind of mole, lol). 

I'm surprised your hammy was still alive after being housed with a female and her offspring!!! The females are even more territorial than males, and outside of their heat they can and will kill any male on her patch.

Hamsters from the same litter can be kept together for a short while, but eventually they will (usually) start fighting. Syrians are nothing like the dwarf hamsters in that respect, with those you can keep them in pairs (preferably same sex unless you want a mini-hamster army!)

I would never advise housing unrelated Syrian hamsters together. I think you have been quite lucky prowl, but you did say they were brothers.

Having bred hamsters I can tell you its a dicey business matchmaking the wee critters.


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## Lil Miss (Dec 11, 2010)

look again at the picture and read the location, there is only one on the back near the spine, scant glands are a matching pair on the hips, it isnt a scent gland.

to the OP did you get him checked out by a vet yet?


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## Phoenix24 (Apr 6, 2013)

They said it was near to the spine. 

Check the other side, there should be another!

Do a google search for 'scent glands on hamster' and you can see lots and lots of photos of exactly what the OPs picture looked like.


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## Guest (Sep 3, 2013)

Phoenix24 said:


> Those are the scent glands, you can tell because they are blackish and look a bit like a mole (not the furry burrowing animal kind of mole, lol).
> 
> I'm surprised your hammy was still alive after being housed with a female and her offspring!!! The females are even more territorial than males, and outside of their heat they can and will kill any male on her patch.
> 
> ...


I didn't realise how lucky I was until I joined some hamster forums and realised how against people are at letting hamsters live together.

I had them in a mediam sized cage and they lived very happily for three years I was a kid when I did this so didn't know any better at the time.

I often had them out together they were the only survivers of a litter of three and they were long haired ones. My boys came to be after I bought a short haired hamster named Wendy with a white body and gold band and she gave birth moments after put in her cage.

Never heard a peep out of them not even a scrap!


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## RockRomantic (Apr 29, 2009)

He's quite a lucky boy. The female and one son have been rehomed and the other son sadly died before I picked Bertie up due to a broken back  poor little mite. But he definitely won't be living with any others now, funnily a girls just got a female similar and mentioned breeding, this guy has done nothing but breed with that poor female so that's a definite no!!

This is a clearer (probably not clearer the little bugger wouldn't keep still) there's not one like this on the other side, this sticks up quite a bit and you can feel it as you stroke him, I've pushed all the fur back on the side and can't see or feel anything like this










He's in at the vets tomorrow at 10:20. He seems okay, getting pretty active 



















I still need to find a cage for him though, I've managed to borrow one until I have one sorted  all the ones I've been looking at seem kind of small, I don't know if its just because I'm used to rats, after having Bertie out the rats seem massive!


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## Guest (Sep 4, 2013)

I recomend bin cages you can either use a second hand chest of draws and use window frames for the doors, cut out breath whole at the top and put wire mesh in thats many do it offers loads of space. I found a second hand chest of draws for £30 in a second hand shop worth doing.


or you could use a 84l storage box which you can build on at later date their about £20 you then just cut out a square in the lid and put a wire mesh frame on offers a lot of space and still works out cheaper then the cages you get in the store :>

Have look on youtube for inspirations.


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## elmthesofties (Aug 8, 2011)

Lil Miss said:


> cats and syrian hamsters are nothing alike, you were very lucky that your hamsters did not kill each other, please do not go around saying things like this though as you may well encourage others who do not know better to try this resulting in dead hamsters


Just thought I'd echo this because when my sister was very young, and this was MANY years ago (before she had access to the internet), her hamster had a litter of Syrian hamsters. I'm pretty sure it was an accidental litter and she couldn't get rid of all of the young, although I wasn't born at this point and I'm just going by what she has told me, which is limited in itself as she can't remember a lot of it because of the age she was.
Someone told her that she could keep two males together as they'd grown up together so they should be fine. She believed them. She really wanted the hamsters to go to good homes but just couldn't find enough, so she figured that if she could provide just ONE extra hamster with a home, it'd help. So she kept them together. And then, when they were probably about 5 months old, she found blood in the cage. A lot of it. She said they'd always been very affectionate towards each other and the fight was sudden and without warning.

In my opinion, there are no 'ifs' or 'buts' when it comes to keeping adult syrian hamsters together. Sure, they may be OK for a while, but why would you keep them together in the vague hope that you MIGHT be lucky and have them live happily* together when the risks are so high and easily avoided?
I'm sorry but I just don't think it's responsible to say that keeping them together can be safe.

*By 'happily', I mean not crying/weeping or saying "Look, (insertnameofownerhere), I don't like this, OK? I don't want to live with (insertname/sofcagemateshere) anymore. None of us like it. We are free spirits, man! We fly solo!". Seriously it surprises me how much some people anthropomorphize animals.

I know Prowl has probably got the message already and I hate to draw attention away from such a gorgeous little hamster but there is a REASON why people say "keep them alone, they'll kill eachother". It's not just some hypothesis which nobody has been able to prove yet - hamsters have died. I know I've shared my sister's story several times but it's still very relevant.


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## Guest (Sep 4, 2013)

elmthesofties said:


> Just thought I'd echo this because when my sister was very young, and this was MANY years ago (before she had access to the internet), her hamster had a litter of Syrian hamsters. I'm pretty sure it was an accidental litter and she couldn't get rid of all of the young, although I wasn't born at this point and I'm just going by what she has told me, which is limited in itself as she can't remember a lot of it because of the age she was.
> Someone told her that she could keep two males together as they'd grown up together so they should be fine. She believed them. She really wanted the hamsters to go to good homes but just couldn't find enough, so she figured that if she could provide just ONE extra hamster with a home, it'd help. So she kept them together. And then, when they were probably about 5 months old, she found blood in the cage. A lot of it. She said they'd always been very affectionate towards each other and the fight was sudden and without warning.
> 
> In my opinion, there are no 'ifs' or 'buts' when it comes to keeping adult syrian hamsters together. Sure, they may be OK for a while, but why would you keep them together in the vague hope that you MIGHT be lucky and have them live happily* together when the risks are so high and easily avoided?
> ...


Its not wrong for me to say the truth that my two boys did live happily together and never fought in the three years they lived side by side in a mediam sized cage it is wrong to demonise those who have don't it and did'nt realise it at the time.

it is wrong to think hang on this persons done it their for I can do it too! I encourage others to fully research the species they are taking on. I did read books but most books I have read on hamsters hold very limited info.

I hadn't realised what I was doing wrong until I decided I wanted to breed hamsters and the pet store owner actually told me that hamsters can be really vicious towards eachother anc that even the ones once weaned could fight at a young age as well breed from quite a young age too it made me think twice about wanting to breed hamsters and I haven't to date. Their are too many BYB's who don't care what happens to their hams you only have to go on pets 4 homes to see a large number of hamsters needing second homes because the kids have got bored of them.

I was pretty lucky I hope others don't see my luck as reason to test out weather hamsters can live together I personally would not house two together ever again now that I know better. I just think its wrong that people who have done it clearly by mistake get so demonised about it.


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## Lil Miss (Dec 11, 2010)

to the OP it really doesnt look like a scent gland, you can see the positioning of the scent glands on kismet, his scent glands were always visiable 

















in your pictures it looks much too close to the spine and too raised to be a scent gland


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## RockRomantic (Apr 29, 2009)

Lil Miss said:


> to the OP it really doesnt look like a scent gland, you can see the positioning of the scent glands on kismet, his scent glands were always visiable
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Berts is much further up and is a red/pinky colour and is right next to his spine doesn't look like that at all. The vet thinks its more likely an abcess and I have antibiotics for him, I'm going to finish the course and if its still there see a different vet, the one I use are brilliant for the dogs but sadly don't seem to be much good for little rodents.


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## Phoenix24 (Apr 6, 2013)

when I saw the first pic I saw what looked like the scent gland, but it might have been next to what is more clearly a lump on the second pic. I hope the vet it right and it's just a cyst. You can search online all the vets in your area, they normally state if they have an interest in small animals or exotics. 

Prowl - I didn't want to have a go at you, I just thought you were very lucky - and it's interesting that your two boys continued their sibling bond to the end. I have to wonder, because I have seen hamsters in pet stores that have been there for a long time, what happens in those stores were groups of hamsters don't sell?

On a similar, slight side-line, I was volunteering in an animal sanctuary in the USA where we had enormous numbers of baby opossums. They often came in litters of nine, but even at a fairly young age (ie just weaned) we were finding evidence of cannibalism (in the wild opossums go their separate ways very quickly...!) and to our horror one morning there was a little tiny opossum head found in one of the cages (the rest of the body was never found...).

Thank goodness hamsters don't eat each other too!


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## Guest (Sep 5, 2013)

Phoenix24 said:


> when I saw the first pic I saw what looked like the scent gland, but it might have been next to what is more clearly a lump on the second pic. I hope the vet it right and it's just a cyst. You can search online all the vets in your area, they normally state if they have an interest in small animals or exotics.
> 
> Prowl - I didn't want to have a go at you, I just thought you were very lucky - and it's interesting that your two boys continued their sibling bond to the end. I have to wonder, because I have seen hamsters in pet stores that have been there for a long time, what happens in those stores were groups of hamsters don't sell?
> 
> ...


I didn't feel that you were but others did so thats why I responded :>

Unfortunately they do!! If they really don't like eachother they can eat the other this is what the pet store owner said to me and the main reason I'm put off from breeding hamsters now.


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## Phoenix24 (Apr 6, 2013)

Prowl said:


> I didn't feel that you were but others did so thats why I responded :>
> 
> Unfortunately they do!! If they really don't like eachother they can eat the other this is what the pet store owner said to me and the main reason I'm put off from breeding hamsters now.


Whoa. I'd have thought it of females eating their young... but come to think of it now, my hamsters really did like eating meat - I didn't give it them that often, I'm sure I read somewhere about it making them more likely to bite or eat their young or something along those lines (or maybe eat each other).

Hannibal the hamster, lol.


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