im new to breeding, i have been reaserching for many months about genes, eyeless hamsters, colour combinations, food to feed the mother when she is in pup, my litter will be in janurary, my female is old enough now, but want xmas out the way 1st, I made myself a rule not to breed near xmas, obvious reasons.
its great to hear you have cages, and you have 9 homes set, i have some homes set for mine, and will be keeping one on for showing and breeding, im working on rex hamsters, as most hamsterys go for colour, i want to get a nice rex gene going.
You can see my two in my sig, terry (yellow) is my rex
Its a good thing your boy is sable, your female sounds like a dominant spot cream, or cream roan, (as said patternxpattern=bad) knowing his back genes will help, do you know anything of the mothers? e.g she carries cinnamon or something?
if she starts showing signs of pups inside, start giving her chicken, spinnach, cress, millet, sunflower seeds, normal mix, lots of fresh water. continue giving when pups are here, she will need nutrition to make them, and after giving birth,
split pups from mum at 4 weeks, into the two genders, seporate cage for each gender, mating can happen, tho its unlikely at that age.
please dont feel we are against breeding, just we have many breeders on here, who do this on a bigger scale then we can imagine, and they just know what can and will go wrong, and want to put people off breeding for proffet/ fuzzy cute things, cos they dont make money, they dont stay small and cute (well, all hams are to me, but they grow up!) if you can make a show, have a chat to the breeders and people there, maybe find a nice solid female and male with the pedagrees, The lovely people at peterbourer show helped me pick out my nancy (she is lovely anyway <3 ) for her colour/breeding potential/compatable with my terry with no risk for illness or eyeless babys.
PM me if you want any advice, we are here for you, we are just doing the typical 'dont do it' rant, but we are friendly really, its just to protect you from the bad rather then not to do it at all.