[alpacassei]

As you suggested to GingerHamster, cleaning it with saline solution will help heal it. Even if you don’t have an exotic vet, most vets should have basic experience with small animals and be able to prescribe antibiotics.

Rarely hamsters can fight off the infection themselves but in most cases it will just keep getting worse without medical attention unfortunately. These hamsters in the wild would either die from illness, be culled by the colony (if a dwarf hamster), or become an easy target for predators