I was just wondering, yeah I know it’d be easier to get two same sex hamsters, but I was wondering if vets perform the operation. I guess they do, if you paid them.
You think it’d be hard for a vet to do, seeing their so little?
Look for the bumper sticker:
I 
MY HAMSTER
It’s not something I’ve ever heard of getting done. I would imagine there would be issues, since it’s hard to dose tranquilizers for animals that small (or so I hear), and because dwarf/robo hamster don’t seem to have the huuuge cojones like rats/syrians. Certainly not worth the money.
You’d need a vet who does “exotic animals”-- that is, one who has training and instruments for critters that aren’t cats and dogs. While I don’t know of anyone who has had a hamster spayed, I do know vets who will spay or neuter pet rats and have a friend who has had one rat of each sex fixed. (Rats are extremely prone to cancer, and spaying them not only makes them more comfortable because they’re not going into heat all the time or having babies, it removes one of the places they can get cancer and thus statistically makes them live longer.) And while rats aren’t as tiny as hamsters, they’re pretty darn tiny.
Petsmart, a few years ago, had a policy that each store only stocked one sex of animals. (They might still have it.) For instance, at a particular store, you could only get male gerbils, hamsters, rats, guinea pigs, etc. while at the next nearest store they would have only females. If you’re buying from a chain store like that, buying two of a kind would be much easier.
My roommate with the mice tells me there are vets who fix rodents. I assume they mostly cater to the Rat/Mouse Fancy.
For size considerations, I’d suspect that even the exotics vets would avoid hamsters and mice. No cite for that though.
I know for a fact that they do neuter guinea pigs - I’ve got 3 “fixed” critters right now (two girls and one fellow, who rumble-struts just as if he still had the equipment to do something about it).
I worked at a vet’s that did eye surgery on a hamster once. Teeny-tiny little mask for the anestheisia.
If they are willing to do that, I imagine that neutering or spaying would be easy.
As of about six months ago, they still have that policy. I was in there looking at hamsters and other rodents, but decided against getting one.
Back in the day, the way to avoid hamster/gerbil reproduction was same gender.
IIRC, having two males who had reproduced was frowned upon as this practice too often lead to a double homicide. no cite
Personally, my two female gerbils got along quite famously and had very nice long ripe lives. I would recommend this approach over a spay/neuter__much cheaper and safer.
You don’t have to worry because people are advised to only keep one hamster in a cage; males tend to fight and kill other, and even females can be very territorial.
Vets can neuter male rats. It’s very easy to find the bits to cut off - look for a picture of a male rat and you’ll see what I mean (and they get bigger in the presence of females on heat). With gerbils it’s pretty easy to tell which ones are male too - same for mice. Guinea pigs are fairly easy. Hamsters are much more difficult to sex, which is one of the main reasons that the advice is to keep one hamster only. Obviously, all this means that hamsters are much more difficult to neuter. Spaying the females would be way more difficult in all those species - same as it is in humans, come to think of it.
In any case, the size of the animals makes any anaesthesia difficult to control, so it is still much better to keep males and females apart. You can neuter them, but there’s a good chance they’ll die. Guinea pigs aren’t so bad, but it’s still generally just not worth it.
My female rat had a tumour once, and the vet was only willing to do the operation on her, which had to be under anaesthesia, because the only alternative to the operation was death. For something like neutering a good vet - and a good pet owner - would be less likely to take the risk.
Awwwww…
Once upon a time, my sister and I got two male hamsters from the same litter. They killed each other. If you’re going to get more than one hamster, I’d also recommend getting more than one cage.
Reiterating what other people have said:
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Although a spay/neuter operation on a hamster might be theoretically feasible, the size of the animal and the risk involved in the procedure would make it unlikely in any but a life-threatening situation, and maybe not even then. Rats and guinea pigs can be spayed/neutered, yes, but they’re a lot bigger.
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Syrian/golden hamsters (the big kind) are too territorial to live together anyway (they need to be kept alone) so there would really be no point to having them spayed/neutered to reduce unwanted babies. Dwarf hamsters, although they do better in groups, can be very happy in same-sex groupings, so again there’s not much of a point. (Pet shops do screw up in sexing their animals-- it happened to me-- so I can understand the urge, though!)
- FlyingRat, who knows an excellent exotic vet who was able to remove mammary tumors on her dwarf hamsters (on multiple occasions, all successful)
My brother had hamsters as a kid, and I had some in college and grad school, and this is absolutely correct. Hamsters are solitary animals.
They are also somewhat hard to sex.
BTW, even harder than spaying them is keeping the little condom on the male.
Some vets might, but not all. Anesthetic is often an issue with rodents. I used to have pet rats and I know people who keep and breed them. Spaying is only performed in emergencies (uterine/ovarian tumors). Neutering is more common, and less risky.
Also, FYI, there are 25 species of hamster. Syrian hamsters (most popular as pets) are often aggressive, especially with the same sex (and will even fight immediately after mating); the 4 other species of hamster commonly kept as pets (usually called ‘dwarf’ whatever) usually aren’t and I have seen up to 20 living in the same enclosure peacefully.
I did this and they still had babies. Stupid pet store clerk.
i have 2 hamsters one turned out to be a boy now i have 14 hamsters. i wonder if it is expensive to get a hamster fixed? can they use local anethesia? i guess not. i love my hamsters and wouldn’t want to do anything risky. i guess they will have to stay apart in separate cages. i heard they can pair bond and get depressed when separated??
I found two vets online who advertise spay/neuter services for hamsters. One specifically mentioned Syrian hamsters; the other didn’t specify. They both listed costs of between $125 and $150. The vet who listed services for Syrian hamsters claimed not to have experienced unusual anesthesia risks.
Did you know hamsters only live 2-3 years? We had a golden hamster who lived quite happily alone, but it broke my heart when he died, and I swore I’d never get another short-lived pet.