Coat Variations

Just some custom pictures of what the different types of hamsters I have are:

Priss (F):  Syrian Hamster
(The white undercoat makes this hamster an agouti, as all Syrians possess this trait.  Because she is Aa and Bub is aa, the majority of her children came out as Syrian and the minority as Champagne)

Bub (M):  Black Eyed White Self Hamster
(Self is the opposite of Agouti.  Bub is all one color besides the tan colored sheen to his coat) 

Spinal (F):  Black Syrian Hamster
(Black is a recessive trait in Syrians, and has no ticking on the coat.  Since the most recent parent was an Aa   Syrian Male, she only had <25% Diluted Black Syrian pups.  When she mated with Bub who is aa, the majority of the babies were Diluted Black or White due to the majority of traits being recessive.)

Tragedy of Scar Face the 2nd

**SPOILER:  THIS POST HAS A HAPPY ENDING, BEFORE YOU GET TOO HORRIFIED**  
   I was photographing the Adonis of my litter and unfortunately after placing him back in with his mother, she lashed out.  I don't know if she smelled something foreign on my hand or was just stressed out from the amount of teeth constantly gnawing on her teats, but it resulted in some rather gory imagery:

Had a nice photo shoot of just him

Moments after placing her back in the tote, Spinal didn't agree and she tore into the pup, breaking its first layer of skin from just under the right eye all the way to its right hip with her large teeth.

Four days later, the scar had healed up 50%

Six days later, the scar had healed up 75%

Eight days later, the scar is nothing but 2mm of missing fur.  Hamster is in full health and spirit.  I remain amazed by how quickly these creatures regenerate from massive trauma with nothing more than Hydrogen Peroxide to sterilize a wound.

HUGE Litter Development Update: (Spinal x Houdini) LONG POST

I'm behind on updates, its hard to get 14 clear shots of babies as well as keeping them all in line.  I am going to just machine gun a ton of photos on this post and let the captions do the talking:

The two coats for the 14 pup litter:  Dove Grey and Syrian (click to enlarge)

Early on, all the babies look grey / black.

Just days later, more variation in color can be seen.

Spinal had a hell of a time keeping 15 of them  nourished.  She only has 14 nipples.

Talk about a full time job.

The majority of her litter are Syrian, as we see here.

The remaining 3 of the litter are Dove Grey Hamsters .

These three pups have the most prominent ticking for a Syrian.

BUSY MAN

I have about 50+ pics to sift through, there are just so many pups this time around its hard to properly photo them all and keep up with my personal affairs.  I will update soon.

Even more updates on the litter

Got my phone back so I can make more content, we're still about 4-6 days behind how grown the babies actually are.  Without further ado:

All 15 babies on Day 4 - 5.

15 babies remain, Day 8.

I will try to get some videos up as soon as possible, still a hassle uploading off my phone without making the quality look like absolute garbage.  Worst case scenario I can just make a video recap of the highlights.

Spinal's 3rd Litter (continued coverage)

Seems to turn out better at night with the flash (click to enlarge)

New angle on the babies.  This is at 5 days. (click to enlarge)

So far they are small enough to all get on  the tap and keep growing...(click to enlarge)

Almost all of the babies have a dark black undercoat.  I am expecting 75% of them to be Black Syrian, but how many Agouti will remain to be seen.  I am sure this litter will be very awesome if the majority of them survive and its pretty exciting.

Spinal x Houdini Litter

   Well, its been a busy 2+ weeks and the new litter of babies is more than enough excuse to not post for so long.  Spinal was getting absolutely massive after the initial signs of pregnancy;  at one day before birth she was about the size of a hamster with a Red Delicious Apple for a midsection.

Spinal Baby is a big fatty fat, I was guessing everyday how many children were in there. (click to enlarge)

A few days later, looking like an Anju Pear.

One day before she went into labor. (click to enlarge)

That night there was a lot of blood and squeaking.  I checked at about 3 A.M. and this is what I saw:

BLOOD BABIES FOR THE BLOOD GOD! (click to enlarge)

The original litter was 22 children (holy hell), but 4 were still born and therefore eaten by Spinal for more fuel to feed the ones that are left.  I checked back everyday in a very gentle manner and she did end up cannibalizing 3 more to leave a running total of 15 healthy babies that survived the first 3 days.  Spinal is in great health despite the amount of blood lost during labor.  I have been feeding her tofu marinated in milk as well as soy nuts and she is doing more than fine with a maximum load of pups on her nipples.  Nipples is not a word I want to end a blog post on, so I will say hamster babies instead.  Hamster babies.