I really think that the whole idea of animals rejecting babies if a human touches it is blown way out of proportion. Like when you tell kids that if you touch a baby bird, the mother will smell it and won't take it back, even though most bird species have a poorly developed sense of smell... The whole point is to leave them alone to avoid stress and let nature take it's course... I've worked with animals all my life, and have juggled around baby rodents for a variety of reasons (cage cleaning, counting, feeding to snakes etc...), and it never caused the mother to reject them. Likewise I've seen hamsters that were left alone devour their babies. I really don't think poking a baby once is going to have that sort of effect. Odds are, especially if this was her first litter, they may have died due to illness, or inexperience on her part. When babies are sick or dead, the mothers usually eat them to recycle the energy they put into developing them, and to clean house.

YDI, who on earth touches a one day old baby of ANY species? Shame on you for recklessly breeding hamsters when you clearly didn't know ANYTHING about it.

Hey don't worry. I have bred hamsters before and actually, reading up on it, its not only touching the babies its often because the first litter the mother is nervous. Also she might be malnourished. Our first litter we didn't touch the babies and the mother ate all 6 of them, but her second litter, she grew older and we gave her some yogurt. She had 13 babies all survived. So cheer up!

How did you not know this? Google shit, damn.

A lot of you are complaining about "letting" the hamster get pregnant without knowing how to handle it. Here's a newsflash, idiots: YOU CAN'T EXACTLY TELL IT NOT TO HAVE SEX. My first hamsters were both male. Guess what I found out a week later? They weren't. Life is not black and white and the number of people on this site who seem to think so is outrageous.

"They're ******* animals, and don't need to be respected." Wow. You sound like such an ass.

This happened to me too. My goodness!

You people need to seriously chill the hell out. It's not like the OP touched the baby out of malice. Hamsters and other rodents eat their babies all of the time, whether someone touches them or not, so it's not like this is new concept. There could have been something wrong with the baby, which would be a reason why the mother would have devoured it. Its natural selection at its best. And there is a very good chance that the OP never knew that the hamster was pregnant and was surprised to find the babies, so touching them would be a natural reaction...which also means that there wouldn't have been enough time between the surprise and the curiosity to think to look up information on hamster babies until AFTER touching them. As for "you shouldn't touch babies of any species!!1", that's a load of BS. As a rancher, the moment my horses give birth, I'm handling the baby and the mare doesn't give a rip as long as I'm not causing harm to the foal. It's the same way with other livestock, dogs, and cats. There's a whole list of reasons why this is necessary, but I'll leave you to look it up on your own.

hahhahhhaha i didnt know that but I wish I was there I've always wanted to see hampster baby get eaten by its mother!

POOR BABY HAMSTER!!... AGREE WITH #20..