Instructions
Remove the father from the cage after the babies are born. The website Russian Dwarf Hamsters states that one factor of a mother eating her young could be associated with stress she incurs from having the father around her.
Avoid touching the pups until they are at least 14 days old, suggests hamster-zone.com. Doing so will leave your scent on the pups and may cause the mother to reject and eat the pups.
Provide the mother with extra protein. One theory of why a mother would eat her pups is that she is craving additional nutrients after giving birth and looks to her babies as protein sources. Give the mother hamster hard-boiled eggs occasionally, along with fish liver oil applied to her food once a weeks, suggests hamsterific.com.
Supply your hamster with plenty of food. One belief is that the mother eats her young when she feels there is not enough food for all of her young to survive. Therefore, keep adequate amounts of food readily available to the mother and the pups at all times.
Keep the mother and her pups in a calm, quiet and stress-free room. Hamster-zone.com states that stressed-out mothers, particularly first-time moms, sometimes eat their young because of stress and nervousness. Do all you can to provide your mom and her babies with a relaxing environment.
Only enter the cage to provide food and water. Do not touch the mother or spend a lot of time in or around her environment. Doing so may leave your scent around the cage or stress the mom and cause her to eat her young.
How to Stop a Hamster From Eating Her Babies
One of the hard, cruel facts about the hamster world is that sometimes a mother will eat her babies, also called pups. It is not definitely known why this anomaly occurs; however, there is much speculation. Despite your best efforts to prevent this harrowing scenario, it happens anyway. However, there are a few techniques you can attempt to keep a hamster from it eating its young.