Housing Syrians Together? Confused...

[Pebbles82]

The problem I have with these scientific studies is - they don't allow for bonding with a human. So to me the studies are sort of flawed by leaving that equation out. Maybe a solitary Syrian would be more stressed if it had no bonded human companion. And maybe with a bonded human companion that would be enough company.

What it suggests in the end is that they need company. But as we know, they will fight to the death. It didn't say what age the hamsters were. If they were siblings who had always been in a group and only say 8 weeks old, then that might explain why they didn't fight.

I can see they had some comparison of clinical differences - but they didn't ask the hamsters how they felt lol! I am not particularly scientifically minded, but it might have helped if the study had included an observation of their behaviour as well as the clinical findings.

There was a German study that convinced me that cage size made a difference to bar chewing - in that it wasn't until the cage reached a certain size that bar chewing stopped with all the hamsters in the test. But then someone pointed out that bar chewing can be a genetic factor - and the hamsters in the test were all from the same ancestry/genetics. So that too could have been flawed. Although it was interesting that they stopped bar chewing once they were in a metre square cage.

[Drago31]

My experience this past few years is if they are raised as babies together you can keep them together as long as they have plenty of room, food and water, but if they are unknown to each other they will fight no matter how much room they have.

[Pebbles82]

That's a good point

[Hamsterita]

Originally Posted by AprilPearl

Hamsterita, people actually video that without stepping in to help? Surely YT would remove it on the grounds of animal cruelty? I cannot bring myself to look in order to find out either way.

I agree with what has been said and will not be risking it!

Sometimes there's nothing you can do about it, because the harm is done (there are plenty of videos of hams eating the dead body of other ham that was sharing a cage with him, or the mum eating the bodies of her dead litters), and people is too morbid and can't stop watching or even they want proofs or a reminder of the event (I can't understand why). Shooting fights is another matter of course.

Anyway, if youtube doesn't remove the worst videos (of animals fights, or humans hurting them) it's pretty obvious that they aren't going to care about removing all the upsetting and disgusting videos that are around. It's sad but all they care about is the money, I'm sure that if those videos had broken the rules against intelectual property using a patented song or something like that, they already would have been removed, but why should they worry about animal cruelty? That doesn't have a direct impact in their budget!

[EmmaAndChester]

Originally Posted by JLPrairie

I'd imagine that the full text would have more information about the cage size and etc., but unfortunately it costs $36 so unless someone here would fork over the money

Don't pay for studies - most of them can be accessed though other websites. Hopefully this works, but here's the full study:Загрузка статьи

^ I've only quickly scanned though it, but it seems they used young hamsters - as in, baby-babies (housed in group housing after 25 days of age, in which case they only lived together up until the age about 5 weeks) though like I said, quick glance and I could have read wrong. If it is the case that they used young hamsters, the results aren't surprising.

Cage sizes were teeny (23cm x 43cm, or 990cm2 or 150"2) with corn cob. This study seems to have only been successful in housing Syrian hamsters together because they conducted it on younger hamsters - who we already know benefit from being with their siblings after weaning from the mother.

I think that study proves how important it is to not go by abstracts alone - it's always important to read the entire study to understand the "full story", so to speak. I'm a 3rd year science student (Bioveterinary), and couldn't tell you how many times I've read abstracts thinking the study was on one thing, and then read the conclusion/introduction only to find out that it's about another.

I'd also like to add that regardless of how much room they have, or if they were raised together as siblings, Syrian hamsters will never be friends with each other. At most, if you're lucky, they will tolerate each other as a survival tactic - but they'll never truly get along.

[Pebbles82]

Well researched Emma! I wondered if they were babies.

[chesca_27]

Thank you for the link to the free study. It does work.

Unfortunately, their study is just unreliable (I would like to use a much stronger word, but I won't for the sake of the forum ) as they use baby Syrian hamsters, which can live peacefully when young. From what I have interpreted, none of the hamsters were older than 12 weeks (but the wording was very confusing) so it could have been even younger, at which Syrian hamsters are less likely to fight.

Studies like these make me very angry as they were housed in too small cages, with inappropriate bedding (corn cob) and given COTTON NESTING MATERIAL. The worse part is all the hamsters were killed at the end. To me, that is not ok at all. Not in the slightest. They have just forced the hamsters to endure cruelty and now you're killing them AND trying to prove something which is just not right.

I don't see the point in trying to contradict nature as clearly Syrian hamsters need to be housed on their own (thanks to disturbing YouTube videos). It seems like they just want to make pet shops worse than they already are by now RECOMMENDING Syrians living together.

Ugh, I am so angry and frustrated right now. This society is just messed up. It makes me so sad that this is now how pets are treated for something that won't benefit anyone.

Rant over.

[flowerfairy]

Excellent post chesca.

[Drago]

Chesca I agree with you wholeheartedly. It's simply disgusting the lack of care there is towards small animals. I sort of want to contact whoever conducted this study and ask them to clarify that they only benefit when young, and to perhaps change the name of the study so there's no misconceptions. I knew in my gut it had to do with age

[Hamsterita]

Thanks EmmaAndChester, how did you find it exactly?

Now that everything is clarified, I would like to know if Miss Amy P. Ross, Kim L. Huhman and CIA work for a Pet Store chain or what. Maybe they were just traumatized by a childhood experience and they were trying to prove that they did good keeping two syrians together or something.

This shouldn't be approved to be published on a scientific media.