Cryopreservation and In Vitro culture of Preimplantation Embryos in Djungarian Hamster (Phodopus sungorus).

Although embryo cryobanking was applied to Syrian golden and to Campbell's hamsters, no attempt has been made at freezing embryos in Djungarian hamsters. Four-cell stage embryos were flushed from the reproductive ducts of pregnant females before noon of the third-day post coitum and frozen in 0.25-ml straws according to standard procedures of slow cooling. A mixture of permeating (ethylene glycol) and non-permeating (sucrose) cryoprotectants was used. The thawing was performed by incubating at RT for 40 s followed by 40 s in a water bath at 30.0°C. Most (66.7%) of the non-frozen four-cell embryos developed up to the morula stage in rat one-cell embryo culture medium (R1ECM). The use of hamster embryo culture medium (HECM) yielded fewer morulas (18.2%) during the same 24-h period of culture. The rate of embryo's surviving the freezing-thawing procedures, as estimated by light microscopy, was 60.7-68.8%. After 24-h culturing in R1ECM, 64.7% of frozen-thawed four-cell embryos developed and all of them reached the morula stage. Supplementation of R1ECM with GM-CSF (2 ng/ml) improved the rate of Djungarian hamster frozen-thawed embryo development: 100% of the four-cell stage embryos developed, 50% of them achieved the morula stage, and 50% developed even further and reached the blastocyst stage within 24 h of culturing. This study reports the world's first successful transfer of frozen-thawed Djungarian hamster embryos yielding term pups. Taken together, the results of this study demonstrate the possibility of applying some key reproductive technologies, that is, embryo freezing/cryopreservation and in vitro culture, to Djungarian hamsters.

Ontogeny of the transition from killer to caregiver in dwarf hamsters (Phodopus campbelli) with biparental care.

Biparental Phodopus campbelli and uniparental P. sungorus juvenile litters (2 males, 2 females) both consumed amniotic fluid and placenta during the birth of younger siblings. Three days later, P. campbelli juveniles were most responsive to a displaced younger sibling. Thus, P. campbelli are responsive to pups as juvenile alloparents and as new parents; however, at intervening ages, infanticidal attack (bite) was seen. At 5, 7, 9, 11, or 13 weeks of age, male and female P. campbelli were given a 5-min test with an unrelated, 3-day-old, anesthetized pup. Females attacked more often than males, yet pup-retrieval rates did not differ. Female aggression increased with age and was replaced by retrieval behavior 3 days after parturition. Male attack ceased after a birth, but parental behavior did not increase, remaining below the rate for new fathers tested with their own awake pup. Over repeated testing, behavior in one test did not predict behavior in another. Transitions from caregiving alloparent to infanticidal adult and back to parental care were clear in females, but less discrete with this stimulus paradigm in these highly paternal males.

Breeding of Djungarian hamsters (Phodopus sungorus): influence of parity and litter size on weaning success and offspring sex ratio.

The reproduction of 368 breeding pairs of Djungarian hamsters (Phodopus sungorus) has been recorded and evaluated during 5 consecutive years. Three-hundred-and-eight pairs (= 83.7%) were successful breeders giving birth to 2113 litters (up to 13 per dam) with a total of 12,591 offspring (mean: 6.0 +/- 2.2 [+/- SD] per litter). One-hundred-and-fifty dams delivered within 25 days after pairing, indicating a breeding success in the first oestrous cycle of 40.8% of all pairs (95% confidence interval: 35.7%-46.0%). The average number of offspring was higher in the 2nd than in the first litter, reaching a maximum in the 3rd (6.8 +/- 2.0), and decreasing thereafter. The loss of offspring (mean: 24.2%) was higher in older parents and influenced by the number of offspring per litter, indicating that experience and stress contribute to breeding success. A small, but significantly higher number of females was recorded only when no loss of offspring occurred until weaning (females: 2.36 +/- 1.75; males: 2.16 +/- 1.63, P < 0.001). There was no indication of a shift of the offspring sex ratio towards favouring females with increased litter numbers, in contrast to the predictions of the Trivers-Willard hypothesis, at least with respect to the species and the breeding conditions as described in this report. Since all breeders were kept under long-day type photoperiods (16L:8D), no signs of seasonality in breeding outcome were noted.