Roborovski Hamsters

You may think that all Roborovski's like to have company. In some cases, this is wrong. They may fight over food or their wheel. Normally, if you see them mock fighting or 'playing' then this is no cause for concern; but when one gets severely bitten or scratched, please take this seriously. The first sign of fighting is when you start to notice bald patches or bleeding of the scabs on one of the Roborovski's backside's. At first, you may think this was just an accidental fall or scratch as you probably didn't see the actual fighting occur. Don't be fooled. The reason you didn't see the actual fighting is because the fighting goes on (mostly) during the night.

                                                     ^ Just a minute after fighting. 

When you first see this scabbing or baldness, please take notice of this and don't leave it to heal itself, as it may catch an infection, but mostly because once the Robo has been bitten, the other one will nearly always pick on it again.

It isn't all that simple to notice when two Roboroski's turn against each other. The first sign is the one listed above, but the next couple of signs is what determines the cause of them fighting. If you notice one Robo walking around with constantly packed cheek pouches, this might meen that it is not being allowed to eat it's food in peace or it is not getting access to it at all; then you will notice it getting smaller and weaker than the other Robo.

^The following day 

Another reason the fighting might occur is when the Robo that has attacked the other one is running around the cage or aquarium in laps around the edges all the time gets so annoyed/pestered that it lets it's rage out on it's sibbling. The reason it was doing this is because of the way you have designed the layout of their aquarium or the way the cage has been set up. It probally feels cholostrophobic. Change the layout of it's cage / aquarium.

 These are the most common occurrences of fighting.

In November 08, one of my Robo's, Tic, was seriously injured by Tac, it's cagemate. I immediately tok some photos which you can see here and seperated the two hamsters. The following day, I took Tic to the vetinarian, who prescribed her antibiotics and injected her. I was also given some advice which I haven't heard on the web before -

To treat the wound and help the Robo heal, give the Roborovski a salt bath daily (you can soak a cotton pad with the solution and dab it on the hamsters' wound(s). Also, replace the current bedding with newspaper. The vet also prescribed Tic some antibiotics to add to her water supply (2ml to every 200ml of water). This should reduce the swelling of the wounded limb.

For the next week, Tic was very reluctant to ever let her wounded foot touch the ground - always lifting her leg up in a very uncomfortable position.

After about a week and a half, Tic's injury had healed nicely and she was starting to put some weight on her injured foot - but I tried re-introducing her to Tac (Tic in a wire box,lowered into a plastic container so that Tic and Tac could sniff, but not harm one another). The results were not good. They suddenly got very vicous through the wires and I had to stop the fighting using a spacula coated with their honey flavoured yoghurt drops. I haven't tried any more re-introducing since. They will have to live apart.