Ok, I need a hamster expert.
We have one hamster - named MC Hamsterpants - and she’s lived in a tank on her own for a year or so. My kids would like to get her a friend. We have a bigger tank ready to go.
But is it possible to do so? Will the Great MC reject and attack a new hamster? Or will they sing kumbaya in teeny little high-pitched voices?
Help me, hamster-wan kenobis. You’re my only hope.
Not sure this can be factually answered. In my experience, it’s quite possible that one or the other will immediately turn cannibal on the other. It’s also possible that they will long live together in peace and harmony, and then one day one of them will suddenly turn cannibal on the other. They’re sort of fickle when it comes to hamstercide.
They are gonna make baby-sters if they don’t kill, make sure you get the same sex if that’s not something you want. I found 2 females were more violent. YMMV.
ETA, they will eat the babies too. My middle daughter still harbors resentment about eaten babies. It wasn’t my fault, really it wasn’t!
They have individual personalities–you never know until you try.
(Cite–when I was middle-school aged, I started off with one and ended up as a Crazy Cat Lady of hamsters. Had several containers of them, including plastic ones that sat on top of 10 gallon aquariums with a tube going “downstairs”. I also had tubing running horizontally between containers. And running wheels that were reached through tubes at the top of the stacks. As far as I can remember that far back, they mostly got along, but maybe that was because they had an insane amount of teritory.)
NO! Don’t do it.
Hamsters are solitary animals. They do not like other hamsters.
Your human instincts tell you that they are lonely and would like
a friend. Please learn to ignore your instincts and look at it from
the hamster’s point of view.
If you would like another hamster, get it a separate cage.
I first learned this the hard way. A friend wanted to buy me a hamster as a surprise for my birthday. Well, there were only three left at the store and she couldn’t decide and thought they would want company…
I ended up with severely injured hamsters: abscessed wounds, a missing eye, etc. Constant fighting until I split them up.
Neither one of us did any basic research on hamsters. Adult hamsters are solitary animals. They don’t want to be with other hamsters.
DON’T DO IT.
If you wish to know the state of mind of a hamster, I would recommend the Diary of Edward the Hamster 1990-1990:
Ah, those situations where “getting along” is redefined as “staying at opposite ends and never seeing each other”. I had a marriage like that once…
My understanding of the reason hamsters are solitary - at least Syrian hamsters, the only type kept as pets until recent years, when the Siberian dwarfs and their kin became popular – is that they are from desert/arid areas (in the case of the Syrian ones). Their territory must support them through lean times, and defending it aggressively is a survival instinct.
Well it serves you right for eating her sisters.
Oh.
My brother got away with keeping two males from the same litter together, but I don’t think introducing a new hamster to the cage of an established one is a good idea.