Where do these hamsters come from anyway.

Campbell’s Hamsters are from the Mongolian and Russian steps.  They live there in the high desert of the area.  Coincidentally, WMDH is located in the heart of the Rocky Mountain high desert. They are well adapted to the cold; temperatures drop to near freezing at night.   If you look closely you’ll notice they have thick fur on most of their bodies including their feet.  The temperature can also rise above 100 degrees F during the day in their range. They can deal with heat but not well.  Unlike the Syrian hamster, Campbell’s are active in the early evening. In the wild they are most active from 6 to 7 in the evening.

The biggest difference between Campbell's and Syrians is that dwarves are social animals; In the wild, they mostly live together in pairs. Though the male will share a burrow with his mate, their territorial ranges are not the same.  The female will usually conform her territory to fit within the territory of her mate. A male may have more than one female living in his territory.  Males fight off other males trying to infringe on their territory.  Competing males often come from distances of more than a mile to sneak in and mate with a rival’s females.   Campbell’s mark their territory using up to 6 different chemical scents; they maintain large runs the same way rabbits do in the wild. A Campbell’s burrow is about 6 x 6 inches; usually they capture these burrows from other rodents and modify them to their own purpose.  The tunnels are about an inch and a half wide, which should tell you something about the suitability of those plastic 2 and 3 inch wide tubes.

In the winter food is scarce, so the Campbell’s have a compulsion to store food like any hamster. They also breed very quickly in the summer trying to have even up to 3 and 4 litters in rapid succession. This can be so taxing to the female that she may die in the effort. A female will start having litters as young as a month and a half old and continue ’til she is about a year old.  One amazing aspect of Campbell’s reproduction is that the female can regulate the number of young they are going to have in any litter.  They also have the ability to postpone pregnancy two ways, first by delaying implantation of the fertilized eggs and second by temporarily halting a developing litter.   I have witnessed these abilities; a few times after selling a female, more than a month later she will bare young.  Even though the gestation period for Campbell’s is 16 to 18 days, females have control over it and may deliver in 13 days or well over 30 days. During the summer the Campbells’ protein intake increases to as much as 60% to facilitate reproduction.   When winter hits, the Campbell’s diet become less varied and less rich in protein which triggers a hormonal reduction in the hamsters ability to get pregnant.

Young are born blind and naked.  Hamster pups cannot regulate their own body temperature and if they are not kept warm they will not grow. It is vital then that the mother have help and Campbell fathers provide it, keeping the nest warm or bringing food to his mate or the pups.  One study shows that with the father present, pups are 95% likely to survive as opposed to only 47% if the female is alone.   If a daughter or aunt assists, pups are 61% likely to survive. You can see that the father hamster factors in very strongly to the success of the family colony.

Relatively speaking Campbell’s Dwarf Hamsters haven’t been kept as pets very long. As breeders and pet owners we would do well to remember how these creatures live in the wild to allow us to better care for them..