Success of Housing Multiple Chinese Hamsters

***As of late August, 2010. New results to follow later on.

So I have gone on several hamster forums to try and find out about the likliehood of Chinese Hamsters getting along. Most people believe that they are solitary, like Syrians, while other claim that they are social like dwarfs, and still other claim that only males are social while females live alone. So I asked these seven questions:

1. How many hamsters were in this group?

2. What was the gender of these hamsters?

3. What kind of cage were they in? (A brand/model name or dimensions)

4. How many wheels did they have?

5. Can you please describe their set up? (How many beds, what kind of toys, was it crowded, etc)

6. Did they need to be separated?

7. Were they siblings?
I got minimal responses, what with Chinese hams not being the most common or popular hamster species on the pet market. I'll update it as long as I keep getting responses--- Keep in mind that so far the number of participants is small and so it may make the results a little skewed. (August 26, 2010).

Only 31% never had to be separated.

Only 38% were given what I would consider adequate set ups. *

If you look at just the hamsters given adequate setups than 80% of hams never had to be separated.

If you look at just the hamsters given less than adequate setups than 100% had to be separated

If only looking at female pairs than 50% never had to be separated.

If only looking at male pairs than 22% never had to be separated.

If only looking at females in adequate setups than 0% had to be separated.

If only looking at males in adequate setups than 34% had to be separated.

If looking at females in less than adequate setups than 100% had to be separated.

If looking at males in less than adequate setups than 100% had to be separated.

Chinese hams that weren't siblings and were introduced (both same sex and opposite sex) had to be separated in all cases.

*Adequate setups would include a large enough cage, multiple wheels, multiple beds and things that would decrease chances of arguments and fighting. This is based on a general standard and what has worked for myself and others when housing multiple hamsters.

So what you can gather from that is that if given a large enough cage, multiple wheels, a large food dish, multiple beds, etc than these hamsters can get a long just fine. Gender seems to make little difference though many have mentioned that it is the males that don't get along and that females are the ones that do better in pair or group settings. It can also be noted that if introducing Chinese hamsters it should be done with the utmost caution, as it seems to never work out. 

**Raw results may be posted at a later date