FAQs & Other Tidbits
Are you located in CA?
No. No, we are definitely not. We are in Virginia. In fact, we get this question so frequently that we've taken the full name of that state off of our website and replaced it with the abbreviation! Hopefully Google will stop giving Zika Hamstery as the first search result when people on the other coast search for breeders. We're located in Harrisonburg, Va. How do I get on your wait list? Ask! :) Contact us through the general inquiries and ask to be added to our wait list. Feel free to also ask us about the litters we have planned, the health of the proposed parents, expected availability, or anything else you'd like to know. We usually wait until we have two or three people who are ready to bring home a hamster before we breed another litter. Sometimes, especially in the winter due to less sunlight and subsequent infertility, the wait list will get long and people might need to wait a couple of months before we have a hamster ready to place with them. If you're traveling to Virginia from far away, tell us about this, too, and we'll try to maneuver things so that we have a hamster available when you're here. It's helpful for us to know this several months in advance so that we can plan accordingly, but even if you can't do that still drop us a note asking if we have any hamsters available. We might not, but it's worth asking! Do you ship hamsters or cages? Eeeeehhhh... it' super expensive and complicated. We'd really rather not. If you really, truly, desperately want us to ship a hamster to you, we're probably looking at around $200-$300. We'd also want to ship at least two hamsters, because they are delicate little dears and it's possible that something could happen to one of them while they're traveling. If you're a breeder and know what all shipping involves, then feel free to contact us half a year to a year in advance and we'll see what we can do. Anything I should know about how to care for my hamster? Yes! Please take a look at our Hamster Care & Supplies page. We tried to cover all of the basics of how to care for hamsters. Read through that, and if you don't understand something please ask us! We're happy to answer questions. If you've already read through the Care & Supplies page and you have everything set up as we suggest, then you're ready! If you're still worried or want to learn more about hamster care, we suggest connecting with other hamster owners over the various hamster forums and Facebook groups, such as Hamster Help with Friends, Hamster Hideout, and Hamster Central. Can you tutor me on how to breed? ....maaaaaybe. We're happy to welcome new, ethical breeders to the fancy, but we do put an emphasis on ethical. We have and can refuse to give hamsters or breeding knowledge to people we feel may not be ready. We have two very different sets of standards for single-litter breeding and for long-term breeding. If you want to breed once just for the fun of it, please tell us that so we'll have a frame of reference for subsequent questions and information to give you. Because walking people through safe breeding practices does take time from us and put animals at a higher health risk, it would make us feel a lot more comfortable tutoring you if you also told us why you want to breed just one litter (For fun? Curiosity? A school project?) and show us that you've done some research on your own (what's the gestation period for Syrian hamsters? How should the diet change for pregnant and nursing females? At what age can you handle pups? Etc, etc.) Giving us some background and showing that you are serious about keeping the animals safe by doing your own research will have us warming up to the idea much more quickly than if you didn't do those things. If you want to breed long term, please please show us that you've already done some research on your own. There is not a ton of information readily available on Syrian hamster breeding, but there is enough out there about general reproduction, basic genetics, "crash-courses" for accidental litters, and other sources that you can glean for information. There is a lot of information to cover, and it will quickly endear you to us if you show that you're serious enough to seek out whatever information you already have access to through the internet, books, or even other ethical breeders. We expect long term breeders to have the space, secure finances, genetic knowledge, excellent care knowledge, and adequate equipment already secured before they begin breeding. If you can show us that you have the resources and will power to keep up with breeding for years, then we will be an excellent ally who can help you learn the intricacies of genetics and connect you with other helpful sources we've found over the years. But you have to put in the effort for us to believe you're serious about breeding long term. We've had countless people ask us to tutor them and only a couple people follow through--prove that you're worth our investment and we'll meet you wherever you are. We want you to succeed, but we have limited time and emotional reservoirs. Are there any questions we missed that you think should be here? Tell us about it.
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