Two female golden hamsters living in the same cage

I am probably getting a Golden Hamster. My brother also wants to get one as well, and my mom said that was okay. I would like to do some more research beforehand though. Some of the sites I've been looking at say that two females can't live together, because they will fight. It also said that hamsters are solitary animals and barely ever run into eachother in the wild. Anyway, if this is so, then at the pet store, why are 5 Golden Hamsters housed in the same cage at a time with no problem. I'm mainly wondering why everything is fine at the pet store with a few hamsters in one cage, but you can't have two in a cage when they are yours? Sorry this sounds kind of confusing. Are there any experienced hamster owners out there, preferibly Golden Hamster owners that can give me some personal experience?

Thanks so much!

Hi Sara.

I completely understand why the living conditions at your local pet store may be confusing you and make no mistake they are misleading. I currently work at a PetSmart and because of the limited amount of space available in the store, we generally house a maximum of six Syrian hamsters to a cage. A majority of the time we get our hamsters in at a young age, many of whom are litter mates and they are usually sold before they reach sexual maturity. Often times though, we have hamsters with us long enough that reach sexual maturity and we are no longer able to house them together. It is not at all uncommon for us to treat hamsters with fight wounds that range from anything to minor bite wounds to very severe injuries such as a lost eye. These animals are removed from our sales floor and placed in our Isolation room where they can recover. If an animal has permanent injuries (i.e. scars, missing toes, etc.) or in the case of a Syrian is too old to be safely placed on our sales floor with the other hamsters, they are often adopted out free of charge to employees or customers.