Breeding Considerations (Part VII)

Breeding Considerations

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Breeding Considerations (Part VII)

·                     UPDATE: Simple Breeding Terminologies

·                     Sexing adult hamsters

·                     Sexing hamsters through:

1.                  anogenital distance and;

2.                  posterior features

The Estrous (Breeding) Cycle

·                     Lordosis

·                     UPDATE: What Mothers should eat

·                     UPDATE: What should be removed from the cage

·                     Young hamsters

·                     Baby Syrians Timeline

·                     Sexing pups

·                     UPDATE: Types of Hamster Breeding

o                  In-breeding

o                  Line-breeding

o                  Out-crossing

o                  Out-breeding

·                     UPDATE: Common Breeding Misconceptions

·                     SPECIAL: What to do if your Hamster pups were abandoned

o                  If the little ones are 12 to 14 days old

o                  In the event the pups are 10 days or less

o                  Pups 8 days and younger

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(NOTE: THIS BLOG AND ITS OWNER DO NOT ENCOURAGE IRRESPONSIBLE AND UNETHICAL BREEDING OF HAMSTERS (AND PERHAPS ALL ANIMALS)

SIMPLE BREEDING TERMINOLOGIES:

(by HH's Plushie) (22)

• PUPS are baby hamsters.
• A group of hamster pups is called a LITTER.
• WEANING is when baby animals are put onto solid food. You may see the mom refusing to feed her pups, this is normal during weaning and you need not intervene.
• GESTATION is how long the mother is pregnant: from the time the egg(s) are fertilized to the time of the birth. (For example, in humans this is normally 9 months.)
• CULLING is another term for when a mother animal kills her offspring. In the case of hamsters, this is often due to mom feeling threatened and/or thinking that she cannot raise the pups (e.g. in a large litter she may cull some so the litter is easier to manage). Often, if a hamster culls her pup she will also eat it.

Sexing adult hamsters

The sex of adult hamsters is easy to determine. Males have very large, prominent testicles. In fact, owners unaccustomed to seeing them are often astonished at these anatomic peculiarities. (1)

Sexual identification in hamsters is similar to other rodents, the anogenital distance in the male is greater than in the female.(13)

In adult hamsters, the male has a pronounced posterior bulge due to the testes in the scrotum. The adult female has a more blunt posterior.(13)

Sexing hamsters through anogenital distance and posterior features (13) 

What you'll need for breeding (4)

The Estrous (Breeding) Cycle

The image above shows the regular four day estrous cycle of female hamsters. The rising and falling curve above

the baseline on the graph indicates the period of receptivity to the male, or behavioral estrus. The blue column in day 2 marks the occurrence of a white, stringy, odorous