Male hamster trying to mate with other male

[acesuv]

I recently had a Russian Dwarf Hamster litter of 4. At the appropriate time, I sexed them and put them in with my adult boy hamsters or my adult girl hamsters. A few of my adult boys constantly chase and hump the new hamsters, as they would if my new hamsters were female. I am almost entirely certain my new hamsters are male; their "holes" are very spread apart and they have a prominent bump on their butts.

What should I do about this?

[Wiztherewoz]

The young ones have invaded the older ones' established territory, so the adults are probably just showing them who's in charge. If they still haven't settled down yet, I would suggest you separate them again and let the younger ones live in a habitat of their own where they'll be left in peace. If they're constantly pestered/bullied and not allowed to get away to safety, they'll only become stressed, which will most likely lead to illness or aggression.

Good luck with them, I hope they're all okay and happy.

[Jerica]

I'd say its a dominance thing. The older ones are establishing territory and that they are boss, as said above. However, be very careful keeping very many hamsters together. I used to breed dwarf hamsters and even though they were supplied with plenty of food and water and babies were handled from about a week old, when I put more than probably two together they started attacking each other viciously. They were ok at first, then they randomly started attacking as the babies got bigger (all seperated males from females). Occasionally I would find one missing only to discover they had been killed overnight and partially eaten...it was very sad. Hamsters are very territorial and even the babies who had been handled since about a week old began to get aggressive, needless to say I ended up selling the survivors to the local pet store as I could stand to have this going on any more. No matter how much I kept seperating they just didnt enjoy any company really...They had large cages, and I had some other cages to seperate them into when some were getting bullied, nothing worked. Good luck and be sure to watch for bites.