Runt seems VERY sick

rommel · 07-05-2011, 01:10 PM

Hi guys. Well this story is kinda long, so I'll try to make it as brief as possible. My hamster had a litter of 10 pups almost a month ago. They all seemed perfectly fine. After a week and a half, the cage had an unbearable odor, so i decided to clean it. The cage was on a counter like 3 feet from the floor and as i lifted the cage by the upper part (the part with the handles), it got detached and the cage fell. As i picked up the pups one was in shock but later was fine, the rest were seemingly OK. I cleaned up the mess and put them back in the cage with their mom. After a week two pups disappeared out of thin air - they couldn't have escaped since the cage is solid, no bars - and another was dead. I noticed their brothers were sort of eating him. I was completely grossed out

. So i assumed the mother swallowed the little guys and killed the other one. That's one part of the story. The other one goes like this: a week after the cannibalistic scene, i noticed that 2 of the 7 babies left were runts, one of those 2 being VERY small. Up until today he still looks like a 2 day-old pup with few fur. My gf called him Sunny. The other runt is a bit smaller in comparison with his brothers, but he's still WAY bigger than Sunny. Ever since my gf and i saw this, we started hand-feeding the little guy sun flower seeds and wet rabbit chow. He ate with no problems. But a couple days ago, i got up in the morning and saw him dragging his back legs and shaking a lot. I then gave him his food. He started walking with no problems whatsoever. I hand-fed him in the afternoon and at night as well. Today he was dragging his back legs again, only this time i noticed three things:

1) he was VERY weak, even to eat
2) he had a yellowish slimy discharge from his genitals
3) he had his tummy all bloated and with a dark tone although he's white

BTW, i wrote all this during his agony since he fell from my desk when i was hand-feeding him. Sad to say he just died. Now i'm wondering the following:
I know it's nature and all but how on earth could there be NO traces of the bodies of the babies in the cage? No blood no anything. Did the mother eat and digest their bones too? Considering the other runt was behaving normally, was Sunny a runt because of a genetic defect or was it a runt because he was bullied or misfed? Why was Sunny dragging his legs? What was Sunny's slimy yellow discharge? I know it was not pee, since hamster pee looks like a milky yellow liquid. But what intrigues the most is why did he have a bloated, dark tummy? Thanks!

**Tammy22** · 07-05-2011, 03:21 PM

Hi Rommel,

welcome to the forum.

I am really sorry to hear about your bad experience of breeding, but sadly these things do happen, and like you said, it is just part of nature and there is nothing we can do about it.

The first thing i would like to say is that when a hamster has a litter of babies the cage, nest and mother must not be disturbed for the first 2 weeks, or until the babies have their eyes open and have started to come out of the nest on their own.

Until this time the mother is very protective of the babies and can get stressed very easily, and if she is stressed then she can decide to either neglect the pups or cull them sadly. The fact that the cage was dropped, and so early, is probably one of the main reasons that the mother was not able to care for the babies properly. Stress can cause the mother to not be able to produce milk properly and therefore not be able to feed the pups properly and therefore not be able to give them full protection from infections and bacteria.

Bloat can occur in very young babies and sadly many dont make it once they get this condition - the symptoms you describe do sound like bloat. This could be caused by the reasons i mentioned above, or sometimes it is caused by the babies not having enough moisture, or other similar problems.

In answer to your questions about where they babies went after they died, sadly this is a very normal part of nature. Hamsters will dispose of the bodies by eating them to prevent them from attracting predators to the nest - also mothers do get back a lot of protein from disposing of the bodies this way, as nasty as this sounds to us

Babies bodies and bones are a lot softer than adults so there isnt much problem for an adult to dispose of the whole body of a tiny baby.

I hope this answers most of your questions.

Tammy x

Sammybingo · 07-05-2011, 08:08 PM

Tammy knows waaay more than me about these things, so I shan't even attempt to add anything to her comprehensive answer. Just wanted to say sorry for your rough experience. Can't be much fun when things don't work out.

Also, I wanted to ask - is "wet rabbit chow" ok to give to hams, even baby hams?

rommel · 07-06-2011, 05:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sammybingo

Also, I wanted to ask - is "wet rabbit chow" ok to give to hams, even baby hams?

Well, Rabbit Chow is not only food for rabbits, it's food for rodents in general. You can buy it at any pet shop. I gave this particular runt "wet" Rabbit Chow because he was too weak to even chew it.
I always give the grown up hammies, including and specially the mother, rabbit chow. The babies were just old enough to get out of the nest by themselves and eat the chow.

Katarina · 07-06-2011, 06:28 AM

bloat in baby hamsters happens when they don't empty their intestines properly - I only know as thats what happened to my accidental litter. You have to stimulate them just like their mother does to do their business - she licks their vents to do this, we should use moistened cotton wall bud for this purpose. My little hand fed runt died of this condition as well. It broke my heart.