Is my Syrian protecting his food?

[MrsWiggles]

I have a beautiful little Syrian hammy who is just over a year old. We recently got a house rabbit and she is living in the same room as my ham.

Today (2 days after we got the rabbit) I noticed my ham has started to stash his food in all 4 corners of this cage. Usually he has one massive pile inside his little sleeping house but now he's using his toilet corners as well? He's even urinated on the buried food.

From my understanding of hams i want to put it down to his protection of his beloved food. Territory and whatnot and not wanting the rabbit to get it.

But I guess I want to know what others think?

Is he ok? Can I stop this?

Thanks

[Hamsterita]

If he is one year old, and it's the first time that he does it, it may be related with the new bunny, because he's having a different behaviour after a change in his environment.

Anyway, if he's eating, drinking and acting normal I wouldn't bee too worried because that's a normal behaviour among hams, as you said they pee over his food to mark it. For us it may be gross, but for them is instinctive.

I'll keep an eye on him, checking that he's not too stressed, but I'll let the pee food be, if that's the way he wants it, let it have it that way, removing it could be worse, and maybe with time he'll get used to the new situation and he'll grow out of it again.

[cypher]

It does sound like he's trying to protect his food, peeing on food is definitely a sign of that & it's best not to keep cleaning that away for at least a little while, I've had a couple of hams pee on food when they were new then just grow out of it fairly quickly & I would imagine your ham will soon adjust to the scent of the rabbit in the room & stop being over protective, I think it best not to interfere with this sort of thing as it can just make things worse so give it a bit longer & see if he goes back to normal stashing behaviour.