[mikityp]

Thank you both for your wonderful replies. I used to have a Syrian hamster, but this is the first time with dwarf hamsters. In terms of the housing, we managed to move the furniture around so that they are now both a couple of metres away from the TV and not along the same wall as the radiators, bit disappointed I didn't think of that before! You were both spot on with the fighting aspect. In the pet store, they were both in a roomy cage with about six others. These two seemed to be fairly close to each other, so we thought they might be OK and went for them. After a couple of minutes on the way home, we noticed that the larger one was just skulking in some of the tubes. Whenever the smaller one would come into the tube it would be aggressive. We thought they might be alright when they got home and we put them in the larger network that we had. However, the same thing was happening every time the smaller one came in the tube. So after a bit we had enough and separated them. The larger one remained in the tube for a few hours, but you could just feel her relief when she realised that the smaller one wasn't there any more. She is now happily going round her wheel at the moment! We knew they might not get on when they were mature, but we thought they would be OK with each other at first, especially as we made sure we got two wheels, two houses etc. Now one is under a network of tables that we set up and the other one is on top. We've gone for Ferplast cages and tubes and we have ordered some more today so that they will have a couple of cages each, a separate wheel, and a network of tubes that are on the same level. So hopefully everything will be OK when they come in the next couple of days.