Anyone else noticed a couple of these cannibalistic FML's have come up recently?? I'm not letting my dog sleep in bed now just in case he gets a taste for human flesh.....

Might want to consider this- maybe she decided her habitat was not fit for babies? or some kind of imbalance that would not happen naturally, if hamsters always ate their babies naturally they would never have had a chance.

What has been seen can not be unseen

Oh I was eating when I read that! Now all I can think about is the half eaten carcasses of baby hamsters! *shudder*

research does wonders

man, now i gotta go search for this on youtube.

If you put a pillow case or something around the cage to give her privacy she won't do that.

The only reason for a mother hamster to eat her young is that she was bothered by someone. I worked at a pet store and when our hamsters were pregnant we instantly put up cardboard and didn't bother them at all.

Hmm, yep. That sounds like a hamster. Happened to me when I was young. Didn't even know my hamster was pregnant. Picked her up one morning, found a bunch of babies underneath. Then, that evening, found a bunch of dead babies.

Ouch that sucks. But as others have said it is something that happens. When I was a teenager, I used to raise hamsters. Most of my females were so tame and/or chill I could reach in to clean and change water and food and they would just sleep with the babies and not care. Had one female though...i named her Spaz for a reason. Twitchy as ****, took me a while to get her hand tamed. Her first litter, I checked, saw her gnawing a baby, was sad but figured "It was born defective and/or first litter, she's overreacting." Next three days were fine, she was shaping up to be a good mama. Then I had to clean her bathroom corner and put in fresh food. Mind you, it was a 10 gallon tank and food and bathroom corner were at opposite end of her nest. Cleaned out dirty bedding, put in fresh, refilled her food dish, put in some carrot and refilled water bottle. Check back a couple hours later...all babies gone cept for a half one she was still gnawing on. Was tempted to chuck her out the window but figured she lived up to her name and got too stressed. Her next three litters had a casualty or two but most survived and then I wound up giving her to a friend and replaced her with a wonderful teddy bear hamster who loved nothing more than to sit on my shoulder and eat sunflower seeds.