First real fight :(

[Lelu]

I have two female dwarf hamsters of the same litter that have lived in the same cage their entire lives. They have had some wrestling matches before, and a squeak with a kick away or two, but nothing serious. Neither has displayed overly aggressive behavior. Most often they will sleep together about half of the time and apart half of the time in one day. They live in two bin cages connected by tunnels and two tunnel hideouts (they share and nest in both).

Tonight I cleaned both bins and the tunnels and added more substrate in on of the bins than I have been to allow for more digging and tunneling. We put them in and they seemed to enjoy it. They went straight for digging and getting under the substrate. Shortly after our smaller girl (that is also more adventurous and hyperactive) starter aggressively wrestling with the other. We broke it up, and the fight seemed to be over. A few seconds later (monitoring for further fighting) we noticed the larger girl that received the attack basically was visibly bleeding from her back foot. We separated them to let her lick her wounds and each to calm. We carefully put them in the cage together again and there was another wrestling match.

They are currently separated. The runt is still acting like a crazy person and more hyper than she is even normally. Our larger girl stopped bleeding right away and is behaving normally outside of spending a bit more time in here nest and covered areas than she normally does (she isn't the most adventurous to begin with).

MY QUESTION IS:
Is this the end of their time together? They are about 2-3 months old. I desperately want to be able to keep them together but am not going to do so at anyone's peril. As of now, I am planning to pull an all-nighter and to attempt to them together while monitoring their behavior without tunnels or anything someone can gaurd/defend.

Stressed hamster mom seeking advice for a misbehaving hammy.

[cypher]

I would definitely say keep them apart now, once they've had a serious fight it's highly unlikely that they would be able to live together again.
They're reaching maturity now & wanting their own space, this does tend to happen with most pairs as they get a bit older & females are more territorial than males so even harder to keep in pairs.
For their safety I would just let them live separately now, it may take them a week or two to adjust but they will be far happier & safer long term.

[Pebbles82]

No don't put them back in together. This happens a lot, especially when they get to an age where hormones kick in. It is actually very hard to keep a pair together for life and I haven't heard of many stories where it's been achieved. And to achieve it all environmental conditions have to be just right. At least two of everything (houses wheels, food bowls, water bottles), houses with multiple entrances, no tubes or tunnels small enough that one could block the entrance,no levels. Nothing that can start territorial behaviour really. And some people even say you should never take them out one at a time but both at the same time, or one can get territorial about the cage very quickly. The connecting tunnels you mentioned could cause territorial behaviour a) if one could guard it or block the entrance and b) because it separates two separate enclosures. The two separate/adjoining enclosures (bin cages) could create territories.

Moving their cages or a clean out can also set it off. Most hamsters get stressed by cage cleans, especially if everything is cleaned at the same time as it removes all their scent - and then they both want to scent mark again. I can see that setting it off.

It's great that you have separated them and that luckily neither was too badly injured - keep an eye on the foot.

But no don't try putting them in together again- they will be perfectly fine living alone and less stressed for it. I would say don't even be tempted to "try it" - there can be serious maimings or killings and you can't be there to observe every minute of the day. Sometimes people are tempted and think it will be ok because that's an emotional response - but just be logical! Blood has been drawn too so it can only get worse.