Having kept and bred Cambells for many years now, I’ve made my share of mistakes along the way.   I came to the decision early on that was going to figure out colony breeding and make it work for me.   I’ve had to use pairs and colonies together to be successful at isolating color genes. As I have stated else where on this site my argentes are not purchased from any outside source and at the time I started none existed.    Of course, Cubit is Argente/Opal..  and she came from outside..(thanks Linda).  Cubit is a recent addition.

If you are interested in running colonies, I’ll layout my thinking here and you can decide if you want to try it or if you like someone else’s ideas. 

I decided I wanted to run my colonies as much like the wild as I could and still keep some control over type and tameness.  At the time I started I really didn’t know so much about the Campbell’s in the wild so I made some errors.   Now I realize that to truly emulate the wild, I’d need a cage as big as all my own living space.   I still made it work. First of all, males are aggressive toward rival males, that is males of approximately the same size that are sexually active.  If there is an obvious size difference, a pecking order is established and the fighting is little more than a flexing of muscle and it’s over. If they are comparable they may fight until one of them gets seriously hurt.  It may happen over time but you will notice that the rival will deteriorate (lose weight and become less well groomed). He’ll also start hiding a lot.   This is because he is constantly picked on.   If either there is an injury or the rival hamster fails to thrive over a period of time, you must remove him from the cage or he will die.

Females do not fight over the same things as males do..  They mainly fight over nesting space.  If the female is not pregnant she usually backs down and lets the pregnant female have the space.  If you have two pregnant females aggressively fight over the same spot,  you may lose one of the litters..   If they are not fighting.. you may end up with to females cooperating in nursing the whole brood.  This has happened to me before; usually one female will take both litters and the other will assist..

One important fact about Campbells is they can control their litter size before it’s born.  If for any reason the female determines a smaller litter is justified she, will voluntarily bare a smaller litter.    I’m not sure at what point this happens but it does.. How do I know?   I’ve watch the litters being born under these circumstances and others..  The mother doesn’t kill some of her litter; if she kills some, most of the time, she kills all.   Instead what I’ve seen is just fewer pups being born. 

The fact is that if you leave a colony grow on it’s own in one cage eventually there will be no new litters at all.. and the population will die off.  This has nothing to do with inbreeding.  My own theory here may not agree with others but here’s what I observed.

Over time the litter sizes naturally shrank as the average age of the hamsters in the cage increased.  Finally, there was a point at which, even with young hamsters in the cage, there were no litters being born.  If I took out the males and females that were over a year old first squabbling started and then breeding started up.

My feeling is that the presence of a dominant male with a dominant menopausal female slows breeding to a stand still.

Because of this, I started some years ago removing older hamsters from my colonies along with any hamsters with undesirable characteristics.  This is always done after some study of the cage pecking order.  My colonies are generally limited to around 6 to 8 animals now unless they have a litter..  and females out number males by about 2 to 1.   Average litter sizes in my colonies are around 3 or 4 pups.  At three weeks, I start trying to determine whether a pup will stay in the colony, go to selective breeding, or move to the bachelor side of the room.

The largest colony I have had was 14 animals not counting litters..  I don’t recommend colonies this big.   They are hard to control.

Keeping pairs is easier and harder than colonies..   First it’s easier to control the outcome of the litter and harder too because you have to do more planning..

First of all, Campbell’s dwarves either are going to breed or they’re not..  There is nothing you can do to intercede with a female on behalf of your prized male hamster.   There will almost always be an adjustment period when you introduce candidate pairs..   If the pair is young, under 4 weeks, the adjustment is much less traumatic and much less obvious to us as breeders.  This is why I try to decide on pairs as early as possible

The usual things one does when introducing two hamsters of any species are a good idea; introduce them in neutral territory; a spare cage or bath tub work well.   Let the male scent the neutral territory first..  Place treats in the territory so they can eat and get used to each other being there..  Arrange the meeting on her cycle; because it is a 4 day cycle you may need to do some trial and error.   Neutralize the scent of both with food grade flavoring..  I use vanilla extract.    Then be ready should things fall apart.

Realize that for old hamsters, this may not work..   even if you get them to tolerate each other they may never breed.  It’s just up to them.  I have a pair that have been together for a year with no litters..  they sleep together   The females mate died after her first litter..  I guess she never stopped mourning. 

Under no circumstances should you place an adult hamster into an adult female’s cage. This will cause serious fighting.  Place the female into the males territory after introduction on neutral ground.  Better yet prepare a new cage and clean toys to house them both.

Of course, the worst case scenario is that they hate each other and never let up fighting.   In this case, you have no choice but to separate them and try another pairing.

Most of the requirements for a colony apply as well for a pair.  Pairing has a big advantage that you don’t have to change the cage litter quite so often.

Diet is important if you want healthy pups.  The difference in pup size between a well fed mother and a average fed mother is amazing. Undernourished pups can be nearly half the size of those fed by a healthy mother.  A nursing mother needs fats and proteins the like of which would make any other hamster obese.

I feed a hamsters mix from Kaytee to all my hamsters.  I started recently using mouse and squirrel pellets for my overweight bachelors; it seems to help.    I also sometimes limit the sunflower seeds in a mix.  When there is a nursing mother in the cage I add extra sunflower seeds and fresh food every day.  Healthy non nursing hamsters get fresh food 3 times a week. Here’s a list of fresh foods I use to good effect.

broccoli, carrot, cauliflower, cantaloupe, frozen peas, cheese, and grapes.

Be certain that all fresh food you serve is completely clean.  Anything in the way of pesticides on the food, even if they are deemed harmless to you and me, may kill a hamster.   Also remember with fresh food, don’t leave any in the cage for longer than over night, it will spoil.   Then too, if you feed them strategically small portions there’s less to clean up.

Cage Maintaince

I clean my cages on a two week schedule.   Usually I’ll do half one week and half the next.    I have a scrub brush and towels which are dedicated to this purpose.   I use bleach on occasion but usually only when emptying a cage or when fighting an illness.  Usually I don’t use anything but water and elbow grease.

If there are litters in the cages these do not get changed for 20 days.  I can’t stress this enough.  DO NOT CHANGE A CAGE IF THERE IS AN UNWEANED LITTER IN IT.    I know you’ll be tempted .. I can hear you saying, “oh, but the smell” while begging to be able to change the litter at 14 days.   Just don’t do it.    If you have to change a cage at all you’d better not do it before 14 days.. because when you do, there is a good chance you’ll end up nursing the pups.  At 14 days at least they’ll stand a chance.  I have had less than good luck changing part of the cage during nursing as well.   What happens is the mother thinks she’s not home or that something is amiss.   She’ll run around for 2 hours to 24 hours looking for the way home.   She ignores her pups.. or worse, she grabs them to try to take them with her only to find she can’t find the way.   So she leaves the pup out of the nest and may get another and do the same with it...   She’s panicked and that is bad.  The only thing you can do at that point is place the cage in a dark place and hope she doesn’t abandon the pups completely.

So a good number of my cages are at an one time not cleaned in the normal schedule.. This is another reason why the hamstery diary is a good idea..  You ‘ll be able to keep track of when the cages were cleaned last.. or how old a litter is.