Re: Uneducated question
It is terrible and even worse for the hamsters whose owners don't discover the diabetes.
I will be honest, I did breed a pet store bought female Campbells into my line to keep it going. This was two and a half years ago now. I had retired and split up all my Campbells pairs and colonies as I was very unhappy with them. I didn't like their temperaments and wasn't placing any of them out as if I couldn't hold them, I couldn't expect anyone else to either. I should take a step back and let you know that all my foundation hamsters were from AAA Hamsters. I had waited years to get some of her Campbells and WW as she's the only breeder in the US that I trusted. Shortly after getting her Campbells, their temperaments started to turn. It surprised me as much as it did her. We had many discussions on the phone about the possible cause. My setups were exactly the same as hers with the exception of the timed, artificial lighting that I use but that didn't seem that it would have been a contributing factor. Another breeder that got Campbells from her out of the same shipment saw the same thing. He wondered if it wasn't an additive in the water! I only had one of the foundation pairs that remained well-temperamented. They weren't very prolific and only blessed me with one male pup in each of their four litters (I bred one more litter out of them in hopes of getting a female and because the previous litters were small and not so taxing on the female).
Other things in my life needed more of my time and I stopped breeding. Quite a bit of time had gone by and I got to the point of needing to decide to retire from the fancy altogether or go "all in" with everything I had to keep my lines going. I decided to go all in. At that point the only one left from this well-temperamented pair was their youngest pup who was no longer young. Luckily this male was a Moscow Champagne, so he had all the color mutations except for Albino (I was very lucky with him). I found a younger adult female normal agouti Campbells in a pet store. I bought her, tested her for diabetes and put her with the male when she tested negative. I bred one litter out of her and then removed her and all her male pups so that the Moscow Champagne male would breed with his three daughters. That never happened, he died of old age before the females ever became pregnant. I then paired those females with their brothers and have been selecting from them like crazy ever since. I "won" the gamble I took with diabetes, it's never shown up. What I have been fighting with is temperament and type. I have one small colony that I'm very, very proud of. Their temperaments are fantasic and their type is the best I've had in my lines, still not perfect, but promising. In fact, just this week I split apart all of my other pairs, retiring them, and then split the "good" colony down into single pairs to work just with them.
It's not something I'd ever advise a novice to do. A whole lot of things could have gone really wrong. I've still not released any of the pups (I have some large same sex colonies going!) as I want to monitor them long term for issues and I still don't like their temperaments. I will not hesitate to retire all of them if I see anything concerning. LOL, no other hamster species has caused me as much stress and concern as my Campbells have!!
I do want to add that I imported a pair of Campbells from the UK and LOVED them! I'd had them for almost six months and they hadn't done anything for me. By then I wasn't breeding but didn't want to see them "lost" so I shipped both to AAA Hamsters. The female was just too old to have any pups by that point but the male went on to have pups. I am hoping to get some of that line back and I'll look to import more Campbells from the UK again at some point.
-Janice
Last edited by radiocricket; 05-11-2012 at 04:06 PM.
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