Food aggression?

[MeganAndMisty]

So lately my Syrian hamster Miranda has been confusing me with her behavior.
A few days ago when I was changing her food, she started making these horrible high pitched huffing and squeaking noises at me. Now she's very tame and I didn't do anything to scare her so I thought that she'd hurt herself since she likes to bar climb a lot. It was the middle of the night so I couldn't take her to the vets right then and since she wasn't bleeding and she was still eating, drinking and playing as usual I didn't think it would be anything major anyway. We managed to get her a vets appointment sine I wanted her to be checked out anyway and they couldn't find ANYTHING wrong with her.

So this morning I come back home after sleeping out and she was still out witch was unusual because she' usually in bed when I come home, I gave her a treat and moved to check her horde as I like to make sure she has no bad food in there and she started making the noises again! But this time she was clicking her teeth at me which she's never done before... I don't know if it's aggression or maybe something's wrong and I should take her back to the vets?

My sister also mentioned that when she went into the room about a week ago Miranda was making similar noises to her, when she didn't even go near her cage. I'm so confused right now because I don't understand why it'd be food aggression because she will sit on my hand and take them fine...

[AmityvilleHams]

Chances are she's just guarding her food.It's a very hard thing to deal with,but it is not impossible to work around!Scatter feeding might work better than a bowl,and also feeding fresh foods outside of the cage.

[Gimleyand Meeko]

Bar climbing is a sign of stress usually related to a small cage, what hamster cage is your ham in?

[freyashamsters]

Hams getting territorial over a food bowl isn't uncommon really, so as Amityvillehams said scatter feeding may be a better option, as well as being more natural and stimulating

GimleyandMeeko, bar climbing or monkey barring isn't 100% of the time linked to boredom / stress. It can also be something a hamster just does for fun

[Gimleyand Meeko]

Fair enough, I would watch though just in case.

Just to check what is the size of your cage for Miranda?

[MeganAndMisty]

She's in an Alaska cage which is a good size, she is a very active hamster and will be getting a cage upgrade around Christmas. The reason I was worried was in case she was hurt. I scatter half of her food and put half in her bowl, I might start scattering it all though. Thank you all

[CMB]

You could even hide the food under the substrate and inside hides, tubes or toys so it takes longer to find.

[AmityvilleHams]

Another idea is drilling holes into wood or cutting holes into cardboard tubes and hiding food in the holes.Or,you could use corrugated cardboard cat scratch pads or similar things to hide treats if you find anything that isn't massive and hide treats in the holes of the cardboard.