To Breed or Not to Breed

There are good and bad reasons to breed. Good reasons to breed boil down to removing or reducing undesirable traits while maintaining or improving desirable traits. This is not an all inclusive list of traits. It's just what is most important to me and most good breeders I know:

• Health - This would include taking animals out of your breeding program that have genetically carried health issues like diabetes, seizures, deformities or allergies to bedding.
• Type - This is the physical appearance of the animal to conform to a standard. I've worked with purebred animals of many species and they all follow the same basic rules. What Mother Nature made is usually the best and healthiest model of perfection.
• Longevity - Tied in with Health and Type. It's a three-legged stool. Improving one will positively affect the other two.
• Temperament - The animals attitude towards people and others of it's species. We do not want fur covered pirrhana!
• New Mutations - This may temporarily take precedence over all other considerations to preserve and explore a new mutation. Once it has been established then breeding with the best of the best is needed to bring it up to standard.

These are a few acceptable reasons to have an unplanned litter:

• You got a same sex pair that wasn't and now have pinkies.
• You rescued a pregnant female from a shelter.
• You got a female that was with males.

There are a number of bad reasons to breed. Again it's not an all inclusive list.

• I want to teach my children about life. What you are likely to teach your children about is infant mortality and cannibalism. Animal mothers and human children do not mix. Children stress them out on a good day. And being pregnant, giving birth and nursing pups are NOT good days. Animal moms would rather kill their pups then let them succumb to death from a predator or other perceived danger. And part of keeping the nest clean, healthy and safe from predators is disposing of the bodies.
• My pet is so sweet or cute I want to make more of him/her. Are you exactly like your parents or siblings? Are your children exactly like you? Genetics is a coin toss as to which genes get to go to which offspring. There are many combinations of genes to make that pet sweet and cute. The experience of a breeder in handling the raising of that pup helped too.
• I know some people who want one just like mine. And these people will disappear into the woodwork as soon as you say "They're ready to go home now". Send these people to a shelter instead.
• I want some babies to raise. Then open a daycare or adopt a pregnant female from a shelter. Depending on the species, rodent litters can be from 4 - 24 pups. Yes twenty four! If you do not have homes and/or an outlet already set up that is a lot of babies needing homes and cages. In the case of Syrian hamsters each pup will need it's own individual home at 6 weeks of age. Most shelters will be so glad someone is willing to take a pregnant female they'll help you find homes when the pups are old enough.
• My pet is lonely or unfulfilled not being able to do what nature intended it to do. It's an animal not a human. It does not feel unfulfilled about not reproducing. In fact non-breeding pets live longer.
• I want to make money. Excuse me a moment as I wipe the tears of laughter from my eyes! Only pet mills make money breeding animals. They do that by mass producing litters starting as soon as the females are able to breed until there are no more litters or the female dies. The animals are often malnourished and rarely handled. They breed regardless of health issues and often breed siblings. This type of breeding accentuates traits - good, bad and indifferent - but usually bad.

A good breeder will:

• Only breed healthy and mature animals.
• Have money set aside for veterinarians and emergencies.
• Have enough bedding, food and housing available for the duration of the pregnancy, the rearing of the pups and for any pups not finding homes.
• Have homes set up ahead of time with firm commitments.
• Be aware of the genetics of their animals and potential issues of combining the wrong genes such as eyeless whites in Syrians and Campbells Dwarfs.
• Have good reasons for breeding as listed above.

Millions (literally) of pocket pets are abandoned and euthanized every year because so many people are breeding indiscriminately and instead of finding safe and loving homes many of the resulting babies spend their entire lives within an animal shelter with very little or no love and attention. Or destroyed because the shelters consider them disposable pets. I have even heard of shelters using unwanted rodents as snake food since they can find homes for the snakes easier then the rodents and it cuts down on buying frozen food.

So please think long and hard before you decide to breed.

Breeding Hybrid Dwarfs

P.J. of
Wellington Hamsters

Back in the day a very good breeder friend of mine had an escape of a Winter White male soon followed by the escape of a Campbells female. The female was found a few days later and popped back in her own tank. A couple of weeks later the female started looking a bit pear shaped. Knowing the likely hood was she was pregnant by the other species the breeder put the hamster into the lounge. On the day she gave birth an awful terrible sound was heard unlike any other. The breeder told me she would remember it for the rest of her days. It was the sound of a hamster in intense pain and suffering and very, very haunting. She rushed the poor hamster to emergency vet who said the babies where stuck and the poor pregnant hamster couldn’t physically give birth to the babies as the skulls were too wide for her. He operated and removed the babies and the mum died on the operating table and the babies shortly after as it proved impossible to hand rear them. The breeder then split the hamstery into 2 locations and will never again keep even Campbells and Winter Whites together in the same room in case of a dual escape, they were so traumatized by the event.

I have also spoken to breeders in Holland who openly breed hybrids who have echoed this experience and been scarred by the experience. First generation hybrids are also often infertile. Only a rare one will actually breed, so you are unlikely to actually move on anywhere with any babies you produce.

Go HERE for a more in depth article.

This page was last edited on October 12, 2011