Are Winter Whites ever able to live together

[leexiongan]

Has anyone kept 2 or more females together?

I have also tried doing that, and it would also fail as there would be fighting and lots of blood.


Male groups are possible, though fighting may still happen. But female ones tend to be vicious.

Male/female pairs do very well though.


Pretty confusing that many websites say that winter whites are social and can be kept in groups easily.

So which side is true

[Sammy]

I have had two WWs living happily together. http://www.thesmilies.com/smilies/happy/veryhappy.gif There is no rule set in stone whether they can or can not live together. It all really all depends on the hamsters.

When (and if) you decide to house two (or more) dwarfs together you always have to have an extra cage available just in case the two do not get along. Out of the three years I have owner, cared and researched hamsters I have only ever heard of one situation where one dwarf out of a group of three had to be separated because he was bullying the other two. http://www.thesmilies.com/smilies/winking/winking13.gif

When adopting a pair of dwarfs it's good to be prepared for the worst and know what you could possibly be getting in to.

[internet_nobody]

Most of my pairs/groups of WW stay together. My best example group is/was a mother and 3 daughters. They were together from birth (when Mum was 6 months old), the Mum died aged 29 months, the first daughter died about 2 months later, and now the other two girls are still together and are now 29 and 28 months old. I also have a pair of almost 2 year old sisters together.

It seems to be a trick of getting the appropriate sized cage (they went from ZZ2 for the 4, to ZZ1 for the 3 - after all they were nearly 2 by this point, then the remaining 2 moved into a mini duna not long after the first sister died as they are a bit wobbly on their legs), right number of toys (inc wheels) and keeping the scents constant at cleanout time. My first few pairs of WW when I started keeping them after being used to robos all fell out, I did things totally wrong. They had two large bin cages joined together by a tube, so the first split happened when 2 of them took control of the tub and wouldn't let the other move betwee cages, I always threw away all the bedding at cleanout time, I only provided 2 wheels for 3 hamsters etc.

[leexiongan]

Most of my pairs/groups of WW stay together. My best example group is/was a mother and 3 daughters. They were together from birth (when Mum was 6 months old), the Mum died aged 29 months, the first daughter died about 2 months later, and now the other two girls are still together and are now 29 and 28 months old. I also have a pair of almost 2 year old sisters together.

It seems to be a trick of getting the appropriate sized cage (they went from ZZ2 for the 4, to ZZ1 for the 3 - after all they were nearly 2 by this point, then the remaining 2 moved into a mini duna not long after the first sister died as they are a bit wobbly on their legs), right number of toys (inc wheels) and keeping the scents constant at cleanout time. My first few pairs of WW when I started keeping them after being used to robos all fell out, I did things totally wrong. They had two large bin cages joined together by a tube, so the first split happened when 2 of them took control of the tub and wouldn't let the other move betwee cages, I always threw away all the bedding at cleanout time, I only provided 2 wheels for 3 hamsters etc.


That was a very insightful post, it seems that we might need more space and toys to keep them from fighting. However, what do you mean by ZZ2, ZZ1? I do not live in the UK, so i am not sure what kind of cages do they mean.

[wofunny]

a ZZ1/2 is a shortened version of a ZooZone 1/2 which is a cage, i think you can buy them is the US?

[mangoandmimi]

yeah, but i think their rare over there.....

[leexiongan]

a ZZ1/2 is a shortened version of a ZooZone 1/2 which is a cage, i think you can buy them is the US?

How big is that cage? I live in Singapore, which is somewhere in Southeast Asia. Or cages are either Habitrail, or increasingly cheaper China imports. ZZ1 should be extremely rare here, even there is here.


Going back to the topic, i saw that

Wikipedia(English and Mandarin) states that:
Some report that same-sex pairs and larger groups do not always get along well and frequent fighting may occur and be a great distress for them, or even lead to death.
Though i remembered in the past, it stated that WWs are able to live in communally or in pairs.


The mandarin chinese article on WWs stated that they may do not do well in pairs all along.

But they recently had changed it recently. The new one states
Winter Whites are like their closely related cousins-campbells whereby they can be kept in pairs of in groups of three. The next point states that many owners are still debating over the issue on whether can they be kept in groups





It looks like the English and Chinese switched roles.

Past: The English article states that they are able to be kept in groups, the Chinese article states they cannot be kept in groups.
Present: Roles are switched

[mangoandmimi]

their both guinea pig cages so the lid will need meshing. the zoozone 2 is 1 metre long by about 50cm (i think...) and the zoozone 1 is same as the duna multy,
maybe the ferplast maxi multy (lid needs meshing, again) will be more common in your area? its the same size as the zoozone 2 (1m long) and i'm getting that for mimi :D
goodluck :)

[leexiongan]

I guess the problem we have is size. For us, a 2feet tank, 0.65m by 0.4m is considered way more than enough. Different standards i guess.

[internet_nobody]

I guess the problem we have is size. For us, a 2feet tank, 0.65m by 0.4m is considered way more than enough. Different standards i guess.

A pair should do fine in that, but a larger group may fight. With WW you also need to be careful about the number of toys in the cage (don't overcrowd, but make sure there is enough for two) and not have any sort of second shelf.