Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Is there much difference nutritionally? Not the big Syrians but the littler ones.

Im thinking of switching over.When my dh bought the last rat it pee'd on him and his hand itched and burned for an hour.My son gets welts from the scratches.Well they both are always hacking and sneezing and Im thinking they might be allergic to rats.My dh is highly allergic to mice but up till now rats havent seemed to be a problem but now Im wondering if the hacking and sneezing is rat related even though I keep them in the laundry room and only have a few right now.
I cant really afford the 80 plus dollars it would cost for frozen every three months(most of that is shipping fees).Not to mention my freezer is small.
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ive notice if i have a rat or mouse on my arm or hand the fine nails will scratch you and welt and itch like no tommorrow i think this is a common thing with claws from them, i sneeze when i change the cages from all the fine dust, good luck with what ever you choose.;
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1.4 various boas(Flicka,Felony,Nova,Alias,Alibi,confessa,custody,Ms.Demeanor)
0.1 BRB Abalone; ABBI
1.0 Rott X (OSO)
2.0 cats (Simba, Morris)
fish & feeders

A lady from my work gave a few dwarf hamsters and I decided to give them a try for micro-pinkies.
The baby kingsnakes loved the babies, but I hated every minute of the little things. They got a different behavior, like a colony where one or two of them were the 'protectors' and they would chase you down if there were any babies in the cage.
You fed them off, then others would take their place.
Compared to dwarf hamsters, white mice are a dream to work with, as the mice are more timid, and generally won't bite you.
The little dwarf hamsters will literally jump as high as they can to latch onto your fingers, and when they do, they won't let go. They don't just bite, they CHEW. They hurt 10x more than a adult kingsnake bite, but a little less than a rat bite.
But the rats (Even mean ones.) generally just give you a warning bite, just a quick hit and run type bite. Dwarf hamsters-not so much. They like to take their time chewing through your skin.
I wouldn't buy them from a pet store.
I would take them free as pets, even if the food and bedding was provided free.
I wouldn't take FREE FROZEN BABIES, as the snakes seemed to prefer them to mice, and I'd hate to have the snakes go off food, just because I got some free feeders. Not even if I got a 5 gallon pail of them free, already frozen, no work required. Just not worth it.
Remember, this is just one man's opinion, but I suspect you'll get more of the same.

I had siberian hamsters, if there are good and bad ones.
They sure are cute, and the babies are just as cute as can be, but don't be fooled. You can spend hours taming them, as soon as you get one in the cage that has babies, you won't be able to reach in the cage, change bedding, or basically do anything other than feed them and change the water. Once they are done with the babies, they will now bite you because you didn't handle them...... It's an evil catch-22.
I hope someone else had better luck than I, but I can't even put into words the bad feelings I have toward the little buggers.
/end rant.

correction: I wouldn't take them free as pets, I didn't say it right; my bad.
I should note here that rats are my favorite, and if you spend a half hour taming a few baby rats before their eyes open, then they won't run from you when they can see, and if you spend a a half hour with each baby you intend to raise, they will be tame for life.
To me that's time any money well spent.
Just a few quick questions, what bedding are you using, what are you cleaning the cages with, what kind of cages do you have, what are the rats/mice eating and how often are you cleaning the cages?
Also, how many males and how many females do you have, and are your family allergic to cats, dogs, anything like that?
Are your rats sneezing?
So many question, I know, but I'm just trying to help get to the bottom of this.
I spend 1/2 hour a day with a random rat from my collection, they just sit on my shoulder as I screw around on the computer, then they usually get too squirrely and restless and they want to go back in their cage. I can say that if a rat pees on my shirt or not, I change my shirt after I'm done handling them for the day, and throw it right in the washer. They do make me itch if I spend too long with them, like over an hour, but in small doses a little 'rat time' is therapudic.
I think they are noble animals, much maligned and don't deserve the bad rap they have, but on the other hand, wild rats will do what they have to in order to survive.
They are very good at surviving.

Average litters, just what I've seen in my area.
Campbells dwarf hamster 6-8
Fancy mice 8-10
White 'lab' mice 10-12 (Short life span, developed tumors at 4-6 months.) Prolly just bad genes. Waaaaaaaay inbred.
Local hooded rat bred for the pet trade. 12-15

I've seen a pic of a dwarf hamster skeleton in a book in my library somewhere, and there's not much to them but fur, teeth, and bad attitude. Because they APPEAR larger than they actually are, they can eek their way through TINY openings and spaces between bars on mice cages. They really are mostly fur. Fur gets pooped out of snakes, so it's not of much use.

Hamsters don't smell as bad as mice, but that's the only good thing I can think of about them.
Oh, they are almost blind, so almost any movement you make surprises them and they go into defensive mode. But they have ninja-like reflexes when they try to bite you.
Also, the most annoying things about them- the noises they make and when they make them.
Mice will chatter in the fight for dominance between 2 males. If you shuffle them around the males and females have to re-introduce themselves, sometimes noisily, but not longer than a day.
If you cycle breed rats, they will coo and shreik when you introduce new females to the fold, but when you check on them in 2 hours, they will be sleeping in a communal pile. Rat babies 'chirp', but only if you disturb mama.
Both mice and rats are quiet (As church mice.) normally, and you could have 10 wild mice in your house and you'd never hear them, except for occasional scampering on hard floors.
Dwarf hamster colonies are LOUD. And they're loud 24/7, but mostly when you're trying to sleep. Whenever that happens to be. It's like having a flock of wild birds in your house.

Another thing to think about is the campbells russian and siberian 'winter white' are supposed to be two different lines of animals, each with their own health problems.
Well, 20 years or so ago you were only able to get one strain or the other. More recently pet stores have been able to get both species, and due to lack of due diligence, they are breeding in the pet stores and in people's homes due to poor information or total lack of info.
This makes them hybrids, and they now have inherited health problems from both species, and new problems have been cropping up as of late with certain color morphs being bred together.
The only way to avoid hybrids is to get them from a breeder who knows what he's talking about. Animals being born with no eyes and teeth never used to happen, and is now quite common. Rats used to live a lot longer 40 years ago, and were more free of health problems as well. But the problem is really bad with hamsters as it takes an expert to tell the two species apart when they're pure, much less telling a hybrid from a 'pure' campbells is almost impossible.
I personally think they make a poor pet, and a very poor feeder animal.

Personally I wouldn't feed them. One, they are lighter weight than you think and I would bet half that is pelt. They are mean, nasty, smaller litters and slower to grow.

If you really don't want to raise them at home I would either buy locally frozen or, last resort, order online.
As for a nutrition chart....

http://www.nal.usda.gov/awic/zoo/WholePreyFinal02May29.pdf

but it doesn' t list dwarfs....just regular hamsters.
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Sonya

I'm not mean. You're just a sissy.
Happy Bunny

Dwaf hamsters are tiny. If you are using rats, even pups it's going to take months to raise the hamsters up to size, and like stated, a good amount of their wight is fur. They also have tiny litters. Usally 4 or less babies per litter. I have raise hamsters before and they are nasy. You can't keep them together in groups or even m/f for long. Once the babies come(or even before)mamma will turn on the male. They are solitery animals. I had on hamster that if you didn't get the male out of her cage after she got pregnet she would kill the make.

Anna

***Kill the male******
Not kill the make, Sorry

Anna

I recently switched over to Siberian dwarf hamsters and let me tell you they are a joy, cuter than mice, They get bigger than mice so thats good for my growing snakes, they breed more than mice "Every 14 days is my understanding" and the best part is they don't smell nearly as bad as mice or rats can. That being said there is an evil side, They can be very aggressive, I purchased a colony of 5, 1 of the females had 4 baby's with her. The baby's are now on there own but let me tell you it was a job separating the young from the colony without getting bit. However I will put up with the aggression as it seems there is way more reward than risk, I have not yet offered any of them to my snakes so I don't know how they will handle the change but I don't anticipate a problem
Foot Hill Reptiles

If you get a chance, weigh one of your full grown hammies and compare it to an adult mouse. I think you'll be surprised on which is heavier.

I don't dare try to pick up one of those devils right now LOL Are you implying a mouse weighs more? Thats interesting, The hamsters look so much bigger, couldn't be all fur could it?
Foot Hill Reptiles

When I was a kid, I raised both mice and Campbell's Russian dwarf hamsters. As pets, I preferred the hamsters. They were tamer and more interactive than the mice when handled daily and kept away from other animals. They were also cuter.

However, the mice were MUCH easier to breed. The hamsters would often attack their mate. Sometimes just seeing another hamster would provoke one to bite. If I had one in each hand, they both would bite down as hard as possible and refuse to let go. The bite was worse than a mouse's bite.

Today, I would still prefer a dwarf hamster as a pet, but I plan to stick with mice for snake food.

>>I don't dare try to pick up one of those devils right now LOL Are you implying a mouse weighs more? Thats interesting, The hamsters look so much bigger, couldn't be all fur could it?
>>Foot Hill Reptiles

If you are talking any sort of dwarf hamster they are easily smaller than mice. Probably by 1/3 if I were to guess. I don't have any to weigh right now. I also know that they are largely fur. I watched some of my ratsnakes eat them and the pelt slips all over and makes them awful to swallow.
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Sonya

I'm not mean. You're just a sissy.
Happy Bunny

Yeah, hamsters are pretty much all fur, and as for their gestation period, it's just a little less than 3 weeks, prolly about 20 days, give or take.
If you got a rapid cycler you may get your time down to 18 days, but I doubt you'll get down to 2 weeks. In all honesty I suspect their gestation period is the same as mice, but the male dwarf hamster will immediately mate with the female, most times before she's even done having all the babies!! It's disconcerting the first time you see them mating so you assume she's done, then she has more babies. Something just isn't right about that, but it's just their evil nature. Since they have less babies per litter I don't see any reward, and I had them for years trying my best to refine it and make it work. The males really beat up the females bad sometimes when they mate, and sometimes you won't get babies out of them for months, it's really inconsistant.

That is very interesting, I will have to work with them and see what I see, I have kept 2 enclosures of mice just in case the SDH didn't work out,
Foot Hill Reptiles

The fur on them isnt any thicker then a rats.Im not too worried about how friendly they are.After being bit down to the bone by an adult rat it could hardly be worse.I'll buy gloves.
I can keep my rats upstairs in the attic and breed there till summer but when summer comes it will get too hot so Im trying to find an alternative by then.
Maybe I can find a way to breed rats only in winter.
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I have been breeding rats and mice for over 3 years. 10 ten gallon 1.5 (white)mice tanks . and 6 tubs of rats 1.2 in mortar tubs and have NEVER once been bit. I think I would get different stock if I was. As for the smell I use Cellsorb plus for the mice and I can go between 7 and 10 days between cleanings but just stirring the Cellsorb Plus with a dowel once or twice during the time frame. If you havent tried Cellsorb Plus, I would give it a shot with the mice. Really keeps the smell to a minimum. I get it at cost from one of the pet shops I supply for $15 for 40lb bag.

For the rats I use aspen. I know these arent high numbers for some in this forum. But I supply two pet stores with feeder mice usually 50 a week.. Hamsters are nasty little solitary biting machines..(When used for breeding)
Bill

Yeah, that's one of the things I love about rats, they are smart, they tame easily when very young, and once they are tame, they STAY tame.
If your rats are biting you, I would guess you bought them from a pet store and they were seperated from their mom too early and had no human contact until their eyes opened.
Seriously, if you want tame rats the easy way is to pick up a handfull of babies when the mom is distracted, and let the babies smell you for a few minutes.
If you do this a few times before their eyes open, you can pick them up when they're small but their eyes are open, and they will know you by smell, by sight, and know you won't hurt them, because they associate you with a communal mom, and you are their surrogate mom or dad.
If you try it with hamsters it wil make no diffeence, they have a short memory, but rats remember stuff like that, and will be tame with once a week cage cleaning type handling.