I'm not a Veterinarian but I played one a few weeks ago at home. We have two hamsters and they were sharing one cage. I began to notice some bullying from Snowflake against Honey. But since we got the advise to get two Robo hamsters from the "All about Hamsters Book" I assumed this was normal. I began to look this issue on the web and saw that most people with Robo's eventually had to separate them. Well things were going pretty well, it seemed like Honey was becoming the submissive hamster and they would work it out, the way I guess hamsters do, by pushing and tussling.
Poppy was out of town for a few days and the girls and I were downstairs playing with the hamsters and I notice that Snowflake's foot has swelled about three times it's normal size and she's limping all over the place. I had been so adamant about not taking hamsters to the vet, being that they are just rodents. So the next day, it's red and still swollen. I googled the problem and began to see something about them chewing on their leg if it's injured, like chewing it off...ewww. So I see someone suggests take the hamsters to the vet or someone also suggested bandaging the leg. I thought I could bandage her leg and fend off her chewing on the leg. Well after somehow managing to bandage her leg, which is really about an inch long, she hobbled around...and began chewing on the bandage. Foiled by chewing. So I took the bandage off and left her alone.
The next morning, she had basically what looked like a bloody and puffy leg, she'd been chewing on it. This prompted hysteria from Helen, her Mom. So we prayed for snowflake and waited until Poppy came back in town to evaluate our options. To make a long story short we took her to the real vet who gave us antibiotics and pain meds and warned we may have to amputate.
Snowflake is healed (good thing because we really were not going to choose amputation). Truthfully, after the girls and I said our prayers for her each night was when I realized she was part of our family.
