Let's do an ice breaker!

[Alex K]

Okay, since no one else asked, how does one run a hamster shelter?  Is it that you take in unwanted hamsters from others, and you keep them in separate cages (so they don't mate or fight)?  Also, you write in past tense.  Why aren't you doing it anymore?

Not currently doing it any more because we're moving and it's too much extra logistics right now. Basically, you take unwanted hamsters from others - there are several common scenarios. Often, pet stores aren't careful and sell pregnant females, or they accidentally sell mixed groups and one of the females gets pregnant. Since golden hamsters usually cannot be kept in groups, but stores sell them in groups anyways, it often happens that groups need to be separated urgently because they start killing each other, and since the owners don't want to buy extra enclosures, the extra animals need a new home. But by far the most animals come from animal hoarders with out-of-control populations at home with up to several hundred animals in one house. When the social assistance office finds out, these animals are either euthanised or, if there's capacity, given to animal shelters. Since the group we belonged to is organized statewide with very sophisticated logistics, they can in fact absorb and treat several hundred animals if necessary. This happens a couple of times a year in our state on average. Sometimes, people working in laboratories want to save the lab animals after the project ends and ask if they can give them to us (in those cases where it is legal). In the shelter, they are all kept separately - socializing groups is nigh impossible and dangerous for golden hamsters, and only occasionally works and is a lot of work for dwarf hamster species. Only young litters are kept together until they near sexual maturity, then they are kept in unisex groups until they start fighting, at which point they are all separated.