Lately I have been wondering around youtube and interent generally to find as much informations about hamsters and their care and everything. The theme I found really interesting to write about were runt.
Anyone who owns a hamster should know what runt is. But do they? Well, mostly no!
Runt is a hamster that is smaller, weaker and has more chanceses to have health problems. There are also higher chanceses for bad temperemant in hamsters. Basiclly, hamster runts are usually born as runts.
Left: Bella- 9 months old adult hamster; Right: FiFi- 6 months old adult runt.
Not only runts and "normal" hamsters have differences in size, other differences are as evident. FiFi is runt hamster that I saved from pet shop. If I didn't buy her, her litter mates would most likely kill her. That's not strange in case of many runts. Ever since they are born, they need to survive. It's not easy with few more litter mates and usually mother that are trying to eliminate the weakest one. Sadly, the old quote "only strongest survive" is pretty much the rule.
FiFi's ears were bitten by her siblings and Bella.
If baby hamster survives first few weeks, it will most likely be sold as well as it's brothers and sisters. But due the bad treatment at very young age, there hamsters have really bad temperemant. Runts are well known as skittish, biters or scared of everything. They need more taming and can never be tamed as "normal" hamster. FiFi is pretty tame, even she bites a lot. She is also scared if I don't talk to her before handeling and jumps a lot from my hand.
Hair loss. Common problem in hamsters with bad health, especially runts.
Probably the biggest problem about runts are their health issues. Their suffer from many diseases that are normal for hamsters, just have higher chances to have many illnesses especially being susceptible to stress related problems. That why your runt should have regular trips to vet and health control 24/7.
I really hope this article can help someone and inform.
-Marko
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