Campbell's Russian Dwarf Hamster

So does anyone here keep these? My youngest son, Michael, got one a few months back from a friend of ours that bought two "females" from the pet store and yep, you guessed it, got a surprise litter. :rolleyes:

We have one of the boys of that litter (my friend taught herself how to sex them since the pet store folks were clueless). He's a normal aka agouti colored male that Michael named "Tank". Sorry no pictures, Tank doesn't like the camera and runs and hides whenever I try LOL.

Anyways, we are trying to find a ladyfriend for Tank and I recently saw pictures online of Albino Russian Dwarfs and fell in love. The pet stores around here either don't have any albino's or quite honestly don't even know what kind of dwarf hamsters they have (likely Russian's as they are the most common but geesh! if you sell a living creature you think you could at the very least ID it properly!) So if any of you happen to live within a reasonable drive of Toledo, OH and know where I could get a nice, healthy confirmed female Albino please let me know.

Tank is awful lonely and it is springtime. He's got nobody to find eternal hamster love with. :tears:

Check out hamstercentral.com. A lot of info and pretty wide spread, a lot of UK etc, but the founder is from Conn US.

We have a few. My daughter's hamster is a "blue" which I believe is a combination of two recessive traits - black & opal. The male is a mottled which is a dominant trait. We had a litter of 7 (4 mottled & 3 normal) born on New Year's day. Of course, I was distracted by New Year's and didn't move Blueberry back to her own cage in time, so she had the babies inside the ball attached to the male's cage. LOL We kept one of the mottled boys and a normal girl (both het black & opal). I'd love to do some more breeding and recover the colors, but I think I've exhausted the friends that want hamsters list for now.

One interesting thing that I read: mottled is a lethal trait in the homozygous condition.

I had some of the first siberian dwarf hamsters in florida. I fed them mainly bird seed mixes, and they thrived and bred tons. Raised full litters.
No sunflower seeds in the mix, more like finch food if I rem right. When the russian and chinese dwarfs showed up, there was a lot of interbreedings, and the siberians got very scarce. I found my original siberian stock was very tame, while all the new blood was nippier.
Aspen shavings worked quite well, as long as it was the soft fluffy stuff, they liked to burrow a lot.

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Originally Posted by nwheat

We have a few. My daughter's hamster is a "blue" which I believe is a combination of two recessive traits - black & opal. The male is a mottled which is a dominant trait. We had a litter of 7 (4 mottled & 3 normal) born on New Year's day. Of course, I was distracted by New Year's and didn't move Blueberry back to her own cage in time, so she had the babies inside the ball attached to the male's cage. LOL We kept one of the mottled boys and a normal girl (both het black & opal). I'd love to do some more breeding and recover the colors, but I think I've exhausted the friends that want hamsters list for now.

One interesting thing that I read: mottled is a lethal trait in the homozygous condition.

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Oh I do wish I was closer, they sound like lovely animals Nancy!

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Originally Posted by wolfy-hound

I had some of the first siberian dwarf hamsters in florida. I fed them mainly bird seed mixes, and they thrived and bred tons. Raised full litters.
No sunflower seeds in the mix, more like finch food if I rem right. When the russian and chinese dwarfs showed up, there was a lot of interbreedings, and the siberians got very scarce. I found my original siberian stock was very tame, while all the new blood was nippier.
Aspen shavings worked quite well, as long as it was the soft fluffy stuff, they liked to burrow a lot.

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Tank is on aspen and eats the same custom mix I feed our ASF's. He seems to thrive on it. The seed portion of it is a wild small bird seed type with only a small percentage of black oil sunflower seed in it plus tons of other small seeds. He also gets a little bit of fresh veggies once a week and the occasional treat of dry cereal. Tank is (how do I put this nicely)...."big boned" LOL

I'm actually cutting back his food a bit since I forgot how much hamsters hide their food and was continually filling up his feeding dish. He's so funny with his hugely distended cheek pouches. Looks like he's got a bad case of the mumps! :rofl: He does the funniest thing. He'll got in his little hamster house and roll over on his back to sleep. First few times he did this I thought he'd gone and died! I went to touch him and over course he flipped back over (well not flipped, more like wiggled, remember he's a tad big boned), gave me quite a look and attempted to nip me for waking him up from his nap.

Tank needs Jenny Craig for hamsters.

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Originally Posted by kjhowland

Check out hamstercentral.com. A lot of info and pretty wide spread, a lot of UK etc, but the founder is from Conn US.

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Oh thank you! I'll do that. :)

:) My daughter's first pet was a grey Russian Dwarf. Most hamsters I had encountered before were evil little monsters, but that litter had been handled since birth and were the sweetest little things! She named the little girl "Mulan Little-Fluff".

http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x...ittleFluff.jpg

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

Oh I do wish I was closer, they sound like lovely animals Nancy!

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Thanks Joanna! It is too bad! I used to be closer to you - I grew up near Cleveland. My mom lives in Vermilion now.

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Originally Posted by Argentra

:) My daughter's first pet was a grey Russian Dwarf. Most hamsters I had encountered before were evil little monsters, but that litter had been handled since birth and were the sweetest little things! She named the little girl "Mulan Little-Fluff".

http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x...ittleFluff.jpg

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Awwwwwwww!!! I don't dare try to hold Tank like that, he'd chew me up LOL

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Originally Posted by nwheat

Thanks Joanna! It is too bad! I used to be closer to you - I grew up near Cleveland. My mom lives in Vermilion now.

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Oh well back to the search for a wife for Tank the lovelorn hamster. :(

I have 2 Russians - Po and Sifo. Okay, the kids named them. And they're both girls. Go figure.

Yeah, I can't hold them like that. I can't hold them at all. I touch the ruff on the back of their necks and they play exorcist on me and bite my finger.

I never thought of breeding these hamsters. I heard they multiply in a quickness. Wouldn't know what to do with them!