Winter White Dwarf Hamsters

I recently got myself two little Winter White Dwarves on the 12th March 2005, one Normal and one Sapphire, both are females and were born in December and so are Three months old. Winter whites are also known as Djungarian Hamsters and can also be referred to as a Siberian Hamster (this name is shared with the Russian Campbells), and are very similar to the Campbells. These two species can easily be mistaken and are so alike that they can be hybridised. This, as with any species can be devastating to a species and it could get to the point where you simply don't know what your hamster is, so care must be taken when breeding dwarves.

Winter Whites originate from Eastern Kazakhastan and South West Siberia, where is lives amongst the steppes. The Winter White is the least common the two, Campbells have been kept and bred for longer, and have more colour variations than that of the Winter White. Until recently the Winter White has just three mutations; Normal, Pearl and Sapphire. In January I heard of two new colours, apparently coming from pure WW lines, these new colours came from Sapphires, and produced Brown and Mushroom. In Europe there is also an orange WW, which too is claimed to be pure, there is still skepticism on their purity. For information click onto this article written by Lorraine Hill Hybrids.

The below information is taken from 'the petwebsite' written and owned by Lorraine Hill:

"The Dwarf Winter White Russian Hamster is more compact in shape than the Dwarf Campbells Russian Hamster and has more prominent eyes, a roman nose and a curved spine towards the rear giving it a bullet shaped body. Dwarf Winter White Russian Hamsters are approximately 8-10cm in length when full grown with males being larger than females. They have expandable cheek pouches. Russian Hamsters have furry feet and are sometimes referred to as the Furry or Hairy Footed Hamster.

The Dwarf Winter White Russian Hamster is so called because of its tendency to turn white in the winter. This is due to the shorter daylight hours and the hamster's coat may become lighter or have white patches or become almost completely white. Dwarf Winter White Russian Hamsters do not normally breed when in their winter white coat."

A more scientific over-view of the Winter White:

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My Winter Whites:

I decided to call my two Milwaukee and Nila, Milwaukee is known as Millie for short, and Nila is...well... called Nila. Millie is the Normal and Nila the Sapphire. So far both are quite friendly, and not scared of our hands, Millie is happy to come onto my hand whenever I place it in their temporary home, Nila will sniff at me but not usually come onto my hands as such, but it is easy enough to pick her up should I wish to.

Although a lot of places say that Campbells and Winter whites can live in single sex pairs, I was advised by a Winter White breeder that they tend not to keep females in pairs as they can be quite aggressive, well as it turned out the day after Millie and Nila weren't sleeping in the same places, I later found out that Nila was attacking Millie and so took her out. They are now separated into their own little houses. I'm not sure if they miss each other, I can't imagine Millie misses being attacked and for most of the night she barely came out and explored her new home bless her. I didn't give her a wheel for a night or two to make sure she'd recovered and took her to the vet to make sure she would be ok. He advised that as the bites are only small, giving Baytril could actually do more harm than good ie weakening the immune system for no reason, as antibiotics kill invasive bacteria as well as our own natural body bacteria and white blood cells. I have bathed her wounds in salt water and everything seems to be fine, the only one I can see after a day is one on her leg which seems to be slightly swollen. Millie now has her wheel and is running around like mad, she's such a sweet little thing.

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Nila and Millie had to be split up shortly after we got them, I figured they must've been ok together as they were now three months old, but obviously not. Nila was attacking Millie, and so we separated them as Millie had some small bites on her tummy (nothing really big, but they were obvious bite marks). So I took her to the vet to be sure she was ok and he agreed that it was nothing too serious and she should do fine without any antibiotics - they could do more harm than good by weakening her immune system.

Although Millie was always the one to come onto our hands, it turns out that Nila is actually the sweetest of the two. She still won't come on to our hands, and so instead I get her out by waiting until she gets in her wheel and then picking the wheel up and allowing her to come onto my hand when she wishes. She really is a 'splat' type of hamster. Will lay out on your hand sniffing around, exploring occasionally and just generally being a very sweet little hammie. I can play with her feet, stroke her, touch noses - you name it! She also happily pouches food when being held and I thought I'd see how she coped with a monkey nut... Straight away tried to pouch it, but it was too big, so I cracked it more for her... needless to say I ended up with chewed shell all over my lap. She's so lovely *swoon*

I just need to get some more photos of Nila though, I normally just get them of Millie in the playpen!

Millie is much more active when we get her out and can eventually become nippy - letting us politely know she wants to go home! She runs around on our hands/arms a lot more and loves to sit on her hind feet and sniff up at us (like the photo above) I keep trying to get a photo of her doing it near us, but the keep on coming out blurred *rolls eyes*. Millie is much smaller than Nila, which is odd and so I am considering giving her a smaller wheel as the force produced by having a much larger wheel seems to cause problems when she's trying to run - the same happens to the dipodils, I've noticed now Miette has a smaller wheel she doesn't get thrown out half as often anymore, nor is she flung as far! So it must be a good thing.

April 2005

They both seem to be going fine, and Millie seems to be developing her adult coat, as she is getting little white ears and lighter areas - at first I thought she was going into a winter coat, but couldn't believe she would be in April! As it turns out WW's actually develop lighter ears and eyebrows!

July 2005

Everything is going fine, with both being nice and healthy. Nila is struggling a little in the heat, as it to be expected and so both Nila and Millie have been moved downstairs into the living room where it is nice and cool...

However, it came to my attention one Saturday night that Nila had the most enormous tumour on her chest, next to her right arm! I couldn't believe it! So I shouted to Pete (who was upstairs), he said he had *thought* he'd seen something, but when he picked her up to try to look he couldn't see anything... But then he didn't look properly and just assumed that it was some food in her pouch instead - how he came to that assumption really escapes me... But anyway, so I pointed out why didn't he tell me he *thought* he'd seen something in the first place! It was the friday night that he thought he'd seen something, and I discovered it on the Saturday night... So we had to wait an agonizing day before we could phone the vets up first thing on Monday morning. We got an appointment for Monday afternoon and she was booked in for surgery the next day. I had suggested it might be a mammary tumour, but wasn't sure as I've never seen anything remotely like it before.

As it happens, the next day when I collected Nila, they did confirm it was a mammary tumour, so I guess I wasn't too far off! We are giving Nila 0.05ml of baytril once daily for 10 days, so far she is doing fine (cries at us when we wake her for Baytril, but she's slowly getting less upset) and went for a check up today where the vet was happy with her progress... However she still isn't allowed her wheel for another week! Poor Nila!, looks like I'll just have to let her run around on the sofa instead *winks*

I haven't taken any photos of the tumour or her scars from the surgery, because it just isn't nice - especially the tumour and I wouldn't want to post them anyway.

After allowing Nila to run around on the sofa for a few nights on the run, she became more and more at home. It came to the point where she was becoming quite a handful to cope with! For some reason known only to rodents, Nila decided to try climbing up the cushions to get to the top of the sofa (Xia does exactly the same too!) So, I tried to stop her by putting a tea towel in the cracks.... No, that only aided her!

December 2005

Millie and Nila are doing well, they are both now a year old. Nila is still carrying on well with her tumour, and I hope she will stay this way and die of old age rather than die a death related to the tumour. I was advised by the vet that unless the area becomes infected or it is obvious that it is disabling her from being able to do normal activities then we shall allow her to live her life normally.

As a Winter White's life span is 1.5 - 2 years I think there is a good chance Nila will make this expectancy and so die naturally.

Neither Millie or Nila have gone into their winter coats... Which is a shame as I would've liked to have seen the process. They have been moved up into the attic where it is warmer, after they were residing downstairs for the summer where it is much cooler.

March 2006

Nila has been put to sleep, I checked on her last night because I've not seen a great deal of her recently, normally I see her come out to drink every day, if not then I check her tank for life.

So last night I check on her and she's behind the wheel in a small dug out nest - she alternates between this site and sleeping in a maze nest. When she trundles to the food it is very obvious she is much thinner and the tumour is now enormous, almost the size of her body! I pick her up to check it and make sure my eyes aren't playing tricks and my worst dreams are realised. At this point I know she has to be put to sleep, it just isn't fair on her. The tumour must be using so much of her blood, energy and even nutrients! No wonder she was so thin.

Totally gutting, I really had thought she'd die naturally because she had been living with it for so long now and she is around a year and a half - the age a dwarf normally lives to. Such a shame she had to go early, and in such awful circumstances. I would have rather she died here in the comfort of her own home, but the quality of life is no longer there and just imagine the sort of death she may have had...

Pete was the unlucky one who had to take her to the vet, he was not in the room when they euthanised her, I can't blame him, I'm not sure if I would've been able to watch her die myself.

Goodbye Nila, you were the sweetest little animal anyone could have ever wished for.

July 2006

Today we found Millie dead in her plastic tube tunnel...

I can't quite believe it, it was but a few days since I last had her out on the sofa with me, she was bundling around as normal, climbing up, hiding behind the cushions...

It looks like Millie passed on peacefully in her sleep, as she was curled up in the tube with no signs of distress.

All I can assume is that it was her time to pass.

Goodbye sweet Millie.

A short photo memorial: