Should I separate these two dwarves?

[Bright_moon]

Hubby collected our 2 girls from the rescue centre yesterday!

They are Mum (approx 9 months) and her baby girl (approx 11 weeks).

We put the carry case in the cage and they jumped out and explored. Omg the baby is an itty bitty tiny ball of cuteness!!

I noticed fairly quickly that Mum seemed to show food aggression. I offered a bit of broccoli and was just about to put a second bit in when mum chased baby and baby was squeaking and laying on her back and did a poop out of fear.
Mum also pushed baby away from the food with her nose, literally nudged her out the way.

The cage is a Ferplast maxi duna 100cm, set up with two of everything.

We didn't see or hear anything from them since they burrowed under their substrate yesterday afternoon.

This morning I very gently disturbed the nest just to check that they were ok and mum came out and I noticed her pouches were bulging, which suggests she has taken all the food for herself. ( I had scattered 2 tablespoons of science selective nuggets yesterday, the baby did eat quite a lot of them when she first saw them yesterday).

So, do we have normal alpha behaviour, is Mum just saying that she is the dominant one and as long as baby remains submissive it will be ok, OR are these the early warning signs that it would be best to separate them sooner rather than later? ( they were both sleeping in the nest together - I don't want to panic unduly but I also don't want anything awful to happen because I should have acted sooner).

If I have to separate them shall I buy another ferplast multi duna cage so they each have exactly the same size? Those cages wouldn't be considered too big for one hamster would they?

Also, what type of dwarves are there, they sort of have pale grey heads and black stripes down the middle of their backs.

[cypher]

Just moving to a new home could cause them to fall out anyway as it's quite stressful but it does sound as though mum has had enough of baby, the baby is plenty old enough to be living alone now but will still be growing so it is essential that she's getting enough food.
They do often sleep together after bullying or fighting so that isn't actually a sign that all is well.
It's up to you really, whether you want to keep a very close watch on them or separate now, if you separate now it does mean that the baby can settle in properly rather than beginning to settle in the current cage only to have a change again.
If you haven't got the second cage already then I would at least find a bin or something you can use as a temporary cage if need be as once they do fight you need to separate immediately. It may be that they won't actually fight but the baby will just get bullied & may miss out on food.
The cage size should be fine if set up properly, plenty of deep substrate, not too much open space & a nice big dark house with no base on the substrate.

[alpacassei]

I think it’s best to seperate them. If you haven’t been keeping dwarf hamsters groups for long, its very difficult to tell the difference between genuine aggression and normal dominance behaviour and the mum chasing baby away from the food definitely sounds like a huge earning sign to me! Keeping them together could end in one of them getting seriously injured or even killed

The Maxi Duna Multy is perfect for single hamsters, don’t worry! Until the new cage arrives, you should make a bin cage out of a storage box. It doesn’t matter if it’s a bit on the small side bc it’s only temporary (I wouldn’t go smaller than 60x30 tho). What’s important is that both hammies are safe.

They’ll be Russian Dwarf hamsters which are hybrids of both Winter White and Campbell’s Dwarf hamsters! Russian Dwarf’s have such great personalities, they’re my favourite hammies!

[Bright_moon]

Thanks so much for your replies. Ok, I've just ordered another Ferplast maxi from Amazon, it's coming tomorrow. We have a storage box but nothing to mesh it with but hubby can drill holes in the lid as it's just till tomorrow.

Shall I wake them up once the storage box is ready and get baby put in there this morning? x

[cypher]

You could just wait until they wake up later rather than disturbing them, if they're sleeping in the nest they'll be ok for now.

[Bright_moon]

As it turned out Mum came out for a drink from one of the water bottles so I grabbed the opportunity! I put the fleecy pouch down and she climbed into it so I thought I may as well transfer her into the temporary storage box cage and leave baby sleeping!

Mum is lively and inquisitive!! She kept wanting to climb into my hand. I did hold her briefly a few times but she does very gentle 'nips' (or maybe taste testing??) and I'm being a bit of a scaredy cat and immediately putting her down again just in case she does bite!!

I don't think my hands smell of food as I washed them, but maybe it is the fragrance of the soap, or maybe she is just testing to see what I am?

I hope I can overcome my slight nervousness as she does seem eager to come out!

I checked on baby again and she woke up and had a fast run round and then went back to sleep, bless her!

[cypher]

Nibbling is very different to biting, it's more an exploratory thing & doesn't hurt so try not to be nervous about it, whether it's soap or something else you're new to her & it's just her way of getting to know what's what, they usually stop doing it fairly quickly.
Baby sounds really sweet, I'm sure she'll soon adjust & begin to really thrive without having to compete with mum for everything now.

[Bright_moon]

Thank you. It's true that it didn't hurt, I think I was just scared that a bite would follow if I didn't put her down! I'll keep trying, once I'm confident she won't go further than nibbling I should be ok, guess we've both got to get used to each other!

Yes, I think you're right. I was awake last night on and off worrying about what would/might happen if I left them together. Especially after seeing how Mum behaved; my gut feeling was that things may have gotten nasty if I did nothing. (Of course they may have settled down and got used to each other, but it didn't feel right to take that risk). I think like you say they'll both be happier and stress free now they're not competing.

I managed a few photos of them (they are SO fast lol) but will have to work out how to share them as I think photobucket changed to paid accounts.

[cypher]

You can just relax & enjoy them now, far less stressful all round!

Love to see some photos of them, photobucket changed their policy ages ago now but there's a thread here that shows how to upload & embed photos.
How To Embed Photos

[Bright_moon]

Annoyingly, the second cage didn't arrive yesterday! Amazon emailed me to say there was some sort of delay, and the tracking suggests that the cage has been sitting at the courier depot since yesterday morning!

Poor Mum is still in the temporary storage box cage which is not particularly big!!

I have had a couple more handling sessions with her so that she and I can gradually get used to each other!

The fleece pouch has come in very handy, I put it over my hand then lay it in the cage and she immediately leaps on to it and I lift her up and hold her close to my chest and she lets me stroke her.

She is very acrobatic and loves clambering and hanging upside down! I put her back in her cage every few seconds and give her the choice of climbing straight back on to the pouch if she wants to come out again... which so far she always does!!

Then when she's had enough she usually gets something to eat and goes back to her nest.

She still sometimes test nibbles my hand so I will keep working on building my confidence, as well as hers!

The baby, bless her, doesn't have her mum's confidence yet, which is understandable.

The first time baby climbed on to the pouch and I held her close to my chest and tried to pet her she freaked out and leapt in the air!! Neither of us were expecting that LOL! Thankfully she landed in her cage but I was upset that I had frightened her.

I'll have to take things a lot slower with her, and not lift her up so high until she's more confident.

Just have to wait now for the other cage, new wheels and more cage accessories to arrive, plus their bunny dreams hamster food! Then I can get them properly set up and settled.

Thanks for the link for how to upload photos.