MICHAELAS! or any hamster experts!! Blood in cage,...help please!

[ingles2]

Have just been upstairs to ds2's room and looked at the hamsters. There's dried blood all over the cage and little bloody footprints. It's probably not that much but is spread around. They are 2 girl dwarf Russians we've only had them a couple of weeks. I can't see anything wrong with either, have had a quick check but nothing obvious.
Any ideas? am slightly worried as they belong to ds2 and he hasn't got over the death of the cat yet..Thanks

Hi ingles, our gerbils were happy together for about 2 years then one night they tried to kill each other. We separated them and they survived about another month alone then died within a week of each other. It was sad I had never had that sort of a problem with hampsters, gerbils or rats before. Put us off getting anymore tho, it was shocking how much blood was all over everything.

Vet said, "It happens."

Ho hum

You know this pisses me off it really does. Russian hamsters will fight to the death. Cages sold in pet shops are far too small, it is cruel. They are nothing like natural habitat. I am convinced that these hamsters who kill, do it because they are too confined. If russians were kept in huge cages, with loads of rooms/tunnels/beds etc this would not happen.

And do not get me started on rabbit and guinea pig cages!!

I have to disagree as my 2 had a really large cage and they still ended up fighting.

Hmmmm what do you class as really large? If I had russian hamsters I think nothing less than 2 of these connected together and lots of toys and beds and hidey place boxes etc would be suitable and most people would not have that much space spare to house them.

Well these 2 were in the biggest cage the pet shop had. and then we had to alter the tubes because they were too sharp a drop for the dwarfs to get up/down.
They don't seem at all happy since I seperated them
they're very lethargic and just lying flat out in the tubes.
What would happen if I linked the 2 cages together? Would they have enough room so wouldn't fight?

The cage was plenty big enough, thank you.

I didn't put the link in. I would have 2 of these connected or cages of this size.
images.channeladvisor.com/Sell/SSProfiles/52000005/Images/1/CREEPY_gallery.jpg

As for should you put them back together, it is hard to know what to do. Do you have a vet, you could ask their advice. Personally if they do fight occasionally, it might be risky. Does one always bully the other? If these scraps are not serious, you could try them together? But ere was blood, so maybe it was serious?

We had two roborovskis which are supposed to live together well if they are from the same litter, but when they were about 10 moths we found one covered in blood. After that they would not live together, you could hear the hisssing and fighting from the other room. We had to seperate them.

Roborovskis are the smallest hamsters and the only cages that are suitable for them are huge duna style ones, because the flatten themselves and get through the bars, definitely more than enough room and plenty of toilet roll/ kitchen tubes to hide in.

tried them together tonight,...lasted all of ...oo...30 seconds before my hamster bully started on the littlie.
well from this thread it sounds like hamsters just don't like being together

so have you now got 2 cages ingles?

we have... 2 great big cages in one tiny room