Destroyed her litter.
Well... not all of them... She had 9 and culled them down to 5 and then killed the other Satin last night
I shouldn't get so attached I know but Hazel the mum, and Skwee the dad, are both pets more than anything, and will always be pets.
But why on earth would she wait until they were three weeks old to kill them? By the looks of it I don't know that she will let the others live but we didn't want to disturb her...
Nothing has changed for her for three weeks, she's been on a higher protein diet than the other hamsters. She got baby food. We put a little lid of Lactol in for the babies to lap up (which they did) because with her last litter (beginning of the year really..) Hazel had mastitis and got uncomfortable being suckled from. And from the word go she let us near the babies (again) and all was fine... we supplemented these babies so they weren't so demanding.
Hazel doesn't have mastitis this time and is a good mum generally.
The babies are all healthy and absolutely huge. There were 6 normal Black Eyed Creams and 3 Satin Black Eyed Creams... we are now down to 3 normals and 1 Satin who... hopefully if it survives... is going to Ems. It's going to be a stunner if it doesn't get mauled by Hazel
but we don't want to hand rear the pups and if we do... we want them to be over 3/4 weeks old before we finish them off because last time the babies just didn't grow very well when they were hand reared...
She hasn't been exposed to any unusual/loud noises. There has been no change in temperature....
We can't find any rational reason for Hazel to cull off her babies at all
The pups really do seem healthy....
Have we missed anything? Hazel has been the perfect mum recently...