Interesting point Sue. I've had gerbils, not too far removed from hamsters and I am starting to think there is a little known phenomenon going on. Even if you have two "males" sooner or later you somehow end up with a litter of little rodents. It might be that the pet shop owner can't figure out the difference or they might mutate. It's kinda like wire coathangers. Even if you start out with one, by the end of the year the closet is full of them. All she needed to do was buy three hamsters and keep the babies separate from the male. As soon as they reached maturity they'd begoing at it as well, and so on, and so on, exponentially. Not sure what genetic effects might be witnessed in their coats from all the inbreeding but their would probably be enough hamsters for a coat in a year or so.

Sorry for the disturbing conversation corridus.