Like most members of the subfamily, the golden hamster has expandable cheek pouches, which extend from its cheeks to its shoulders. In the wild, hamsters are larder hoarders; they use their cheek pouches to transport food to their burrows. Their name in the local Arabic dialect where they were found translates to "mister saddlebags" due to the amount of storage space in their cheek pouches. If food is plentiful, they store it in large amounts—it has been reported that 25 kilograms (55 lb) of grain was found in the burrow of a single hamster.
Sexually mature female hamsters come into season every four days. Golden hamsters have the shortest gestation period in any known placental mammal at only 16 days. Gestation has been known to last up to 18 days but this is rare and almost always includes complications. They can produce large litters of 20 or more young, although the average litter size is between 8 to 10 pups. If a mother hamster is inexperienced or feels threatened, she may abandon or even eat her pups. A female hamster will come into season almost immediately after giving birth, and can become pregnant despite already having a litter. This puts a lot of stress on the mother's body and often results in very weak and undernourished young.
Hamsters are very territorial and may attack others. Exceptions do occur, usually when a female and male come together when the female is in heat, and even so the female may attack the male after mating. Even brothers and sisters, once mature, may attack one another. In captivity, babies are separated from their mother and by gender after 4 weeks as they sexually mature at 4–5 weeks old. Same sex groups of siblings can stay with each other until they're approximately 8 weeks old, at which point they will begin to become territorial and will fight with each other.
Infanticide is not uncommon with female golden hamsters. They will eat their dead young in the wild to prevent predators detecting them. Some females, however, have been known to kill and eat healthy young, usually as a result of the pups interacting with humans as any foreign scent is treated as a threat.
Golden hamsters mark their burrow with secretions from special scent glands on their hips. Male hamsters in particular lick their body near the glands, creating damp spots on the fur, then drag their sides along objects to mark their territory. Females will often use bodily secretions and feces.
Discovery
Discovery
Golden hamsters originate from Syria and were found in 1839 by British zoologist George Robert Waterhouse. Their natural condition is a dry, hot desert climate. The widespread notion that the name 'Hamster' derives from the German for 'hoarding (food)' is wrong: rather, the German verb hamstern derives from the name of the animal, owing to their respective behavior. 'Hamster' probably derives from the proto-slavic chomẽstar (compare also with Russian 'хомячок', 'hohmyachok' or Polish 'chomik').
Waterhouse's original specimen was a female hamster—he named it Cricetus auratus or the "golden hamster". The skin of the specimen is kept at the British Museum of Natural History.
In 1930, Israel Aharoni, a zoologist and professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, captured a mother hamster and her litter of pups in Aleppo, Syria. The hamsters were bred in Jerusalem as laboratory animals. Some escaped from the cage through a hole in the floor, and most of the wild golden hamsters in Israel today are believed to be descended from this litter.
Descendants of the captive hamsters were shipped to Britain in 1931, where they came under the care of the Wellcome Bureau of Scientific Research. They bred well and two more pair were given to the Zoological Society of London in 1932. The descendants of these were passed on to private breeders in 1937. A separate stock of hamsters was exported from Syria to the USA in 1971, but it appears that none of today's North American pets are descended from these (at least in the female line), because recent mitochondrial DNA studies have established that all domestic golden hamsters are descended from one female – probably the one captured in 1930 in Syria.
Since the species was named, the genus Cricetus has been subdivided and this species (together with several others) was separated into the genus Mesocricetus, leading to the currently accepted scientific name for the golden hamster of Mesocricetus auratus.
Hamster as Pet
Hamster as Pet
Golden hamsters are popular as house pets due to their docile, inquisitive nature and small size. However, these animals have some special requirements that must be met in order for them to be happy and healthy. Although some people mistakenly think of them as a pet for young children, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals recommends hamsters as pets only for people 10 years or older and the child should be supervised by an adult.
Most hamsters in American and British pet stores are golden hamsters. Originally, golden hamsters came in just one color — the mixture of brown, black, and gold which gave them their "golden" name — but they have since developed a myriad of color and pattern mutations such as cream, white, blonde, cinnamon, tortoiseshell, black,three different shades of gray, dominant spot, banded, dilute, just to name a few. In pet stores today you will see them labeled many different ways, according to coat, color, and pattern. Often, you will see pet stores mark up the price tag and tell you that the hamster is a compleletely different "breed" just to make profit. The Humane Society of the United States states there is no such thing as a habitat that is too big for a hamster. The hamster will spend the majority of its time in the cage, so it should be as big as possible, safe, comfortable and interesting. Golden hamsters are energetic and need space to exercise.
Syrian hamster housing and bedding
Syrian hamsters can be kept in traditional wired cages or aquarium type cages. Wired cages have the advantages that they have bars which the hamsters like to climb and they are well ventilated although, this can lead to a mess around these cages. Aquarium type cages can be made of plastic or glass, these are tidier in use as material cannot spill out around them, however ventilation can be a problem and they can overheat in the summer.
Hamster bedding material can be hay, paper derived products or some types of dust free wood shaving, these should be used with care as allergies can occur and they can cause breathing difficulties. Syrian hamsters usually restrict their excretions to one place in their cage and with some training they can be encouraged to use small litter trays.
