[alpacassei]

I always recommend just getting one hamster. Russians can live in same-sex pairs or colonies if their personalities are compatible and they have an appropriately sized habitat with plenty of enrichment. However this should only be done by a very experienced owner as their behaviour is difficult to read and all it takes is to mistake one agressive behaviour for a normal dominance behaviour and suddenly you have injured or even dead hamsters.

I recently rescued a pair of male russians which I had to seperate immediately as one wasn’t letting the other eat (poor Peach was very underweight when I brought him home) and had bitten eachothers tails raw. It could’ve ended a lot worse had I not separated them though.