Baby hamsters died

Aiyoh, so sad. Our mother hamster had given birth to 5 babies but I think we're down to 2 now. I did pick up a half eaten dead pup (not with my hands - but with a pair of disposable chopsticks). We did leave the mother and her pups alone and we didn't touch her or the babies at all. BUT we had left the crazy father inside. He's called Dizzy for a reason. He has a tendency to go round and round and round AND not on the running wheel. If he can't run round his cage, he'll chase his own backside on the spot!

Anyway, I spotted Dizzy running into the small house where the mother had built a nest for her babies and he was running in circles in that tiny house! I'm pretty sure he had stomped on some of them or injured them and the mum had eaten them up. We did try to catch him out but we were a bit apprehensive cause we didn't want to intrude into the mother's privacy and make her eat up her own babies in panic. So we made a mistake of letting remain in the same cage as the mum and her pups. Sigh.

I know that mother hamsters do eat their young for a variety of reasons. It could be because she smells an unknown scent on her babies or she senses danger or the baby is ill or she knows she can't feed them all etc. Well, our mum is quite used to being handled by Tessa and Mike. They carry her all the time but stopped after she had given birth. Today, Mike said he opened the cage door and she climbed out onto his hand and let herself be pat. When she returned to the cage, she didn't run amok or into a panic. I think it's cause we had decided to remove the male from her cage last night. Dizzy spent a long time running in circles in his new two storey bungalow then buried himself under the bedding and went to sleep. We intend to keep him separate till the pups are a little older. He's so content running in circles, he doesn't know how to climb to the upper floor!

I think I'm heading to the pet shop after work today to see if I can buy something nutritional for the mum. I'm not keen to introduce vegetables to her at this point because if she dies of diarrhoea or something, that'll mean the end of the pups! Mike was teasing me last night. Said I made so much noise when he and Tess had come home with the hamsters and now, I'm the one who can't get enough of them. That's true. The pups are only a week old. I can't wait to be able to hold them in my hands!