Can a hoard be too large?

[TinyBubbles]

I have made a shoebox house for my dwarf but left a center divider for him to use the different parts of the house for different activities.

In our last spot cleaning I told my son he needed to look through his hoard to make sure it was dry and there were no veggies hidden away in it and we found his hoard has probably tripled in size. If you can imagine the shoe box for a boys size 5 sneakers (shoes for an 11 year old), our Snowball has filled almost a quarter with millet, seeds and food.

The only changes we have made is that I started to put less food in the bowl and scatter more. I've never measured but we scatter feed twice a day, I eyeball about a teaspoon each time. And we have started to give him a spray of millet, oats or wheat every couple of days and he also gets some fresh veg each night. (Not a change on the veg but seemed worth mentioning.)

In that same cleaning he caught us in his hoard and I'm not sure but I think he may have started a second one someplace else now that "hoomans have found his stash." Should I clear some of that out? He doesn't typically wet near his hoard so it does stay dry but I know I wouldn't want to eat something that has sat around that long...?

[Kyrkogrimr]

I tend to adjust how much I put out by how much they have in their hoard. You don't want them to deplete the hoard too much, (if I recall correctly they like to have a couple of days' worth of food) but I also find that if the stores are overflowing, they get picky about what they eat which affects the balance of nutrition they're getting from their food. I also find that scatter feeding helps as they can't just stuff their pouches and cart it off, so I would stick with the scatter feeding.

I'm hardly an expert though and would welcome more experienced views

[Thin Lizzy]

My hamster gets steamed vegetables and baby food everyday. When it comes to his hamster food, I only fill the dish once it's empty, Noah comes and gets what he needs as he's already got a stash in his house.
Anything he doesn't want he puts at the entrance of his house or in his toilet area. Fortunately, he gets a wide variety of vegetables and these are always eaten. He does get hamster treats daily.

[Creampuff]

What do you do if you can't find your hamsters hoard? I can't find it lol.

[TinyBubbles]

I found some small piles but there was a thread here that said that if you give your hammy a larger "house" they will use different parts for different things. So I gave it a try, I used a portion of the bottom of the shoebox to make a divider for the middle and he moved right in and made a nest on one side and started to hoard on the other. I can hear him scratching around in his hoard sometimes after I feed him.

My guy is so "food driven" that he hoovers it right up as soon as I scatter and then goes and drops it off. If you notice them pouching food watch to see if they go to the same place and come back with empty pouches. That is where the hoard is!

[Pebbles82]

I don’t think the hoard sounds too large . It makes them feel secure and they are very precious about their hoards. They tend to forage and pouch from the food bowl and scatter feed and only actually eat from the hoard. I bet he loves that house. They can put “special “ things in a different place as well. Our hamster sees half a walnut as a special thing so puts it in his toilet/litter tray of all places! (Theory is that deters anyone from stealing it if it’s peed on but just makes the walnut go black and manky. If I see it I take it out and put it next to the potty instead- a few times - then he gets on the habit of leaving it next to the potty.

As regards the amount of food, I just put the same amount out. A desserstpoon full. If quite a bit left in the bowl I do it every other day. If your hamster is clearing his bowl daily and hoarding it all then yes it will mean going through quite a bit of food, a lot of which will get wasted. But it’s a balance. They need to forage daily to have normal behaviours. If less food appears they could actually get anxious and hoard more than usual.

Not sure how much you put in his food bowl but I tend to put a dessert spoonful, of some still there I miss a day but then scatter a few pumpkin seeds as a treat for foraging. On the third day I throw away anything left in the bowl and put a new spoonful out. Only because they seem to ignore good that isn’t freshly put out and only pouch the newly put out stuff.

They hoard more than they eat because they are hard wired to hoard supplies in case of food shortage. I’ve found one hamster would actually put sand in his hoard as well - maybe to preserve it? And you may find a pile of hoarded poops as well - they can eat poops for emergency food supplies - they have two stomachs and can redigest nutrients from poops - a survival mechanism. So if they eat one it’s quite normal

What I tend to do - with regard to size of hoard - is leave it till a substrate change - which I only do about every 2 to 3 months as our hamster uses a litter tray for peeing so empty that every few days and the occasional spot clean of substrate etc if necessary during that time- gives minimal disturbance. That is with a good substrate depth of about 5”.

At that time I “prune” the hoard and take out most of the bottom section - which is old food and can start to deteriorate (they do tend to only hoard dry food and eat fresh food straight away so if you only give a tiny bit of veg daily no need to worry about that). I leave the newest top bit of hoard where it is - or put it back in the same place. They often have their main hoard under their nest. If there is enough substrate under the nest to do that.

However if the hoard is starting to fill up the house to the point he can’t get through the door then maybe (when he’s not looking!) remove some from the bottom but leave the top newer bit in tact. If ever you have to remove any though give a special treat or scatter a few treats in the cage to make up for it or distract them from their hoard being messed with!

Sometimes you do need to remove a hoard of it gets peed on as that is unhygienic and can go mouldy as well. In that case try and leave a little bit behind that is dry and add some new food in the same place so he still has a hoard - ie replace some of it.

Hoarding behaviour can lead to some issues as if they fear it being “stolen” then they can pee on it to deter people stealing it - then you have to remove it so they pee on the new hoard - it can be a vicious circle. You can break that though and if it becomes an issue I tend to put the new replaced hoard “near” the old one rather than in the same place to stop the pee cycle in that spot.

All hamsters are different and have different personalities. Yours sounds a bit like our last one, Newt, who I used to call my little hoover. He literally hoovered up all food.

They do need routine and can get fearful of there is no food available so they do need food providing each day even if they hoard most of it. At the end of the day I think hamster food is not that expensive and a bag lasts a long time and it keeps them happy.

[Pebbles82]

The other thing they are precious about is their nest. That can be left alone for a very long time and they just keep refurbishing it. Only if it gets peed in does it need removing and even then try and leave a bit of the old nest behind that smells familiar and they rebuild it from new nesting material - and then learn not to pee in it. They are quite clean little things really - just their pee that is smelly. A potty litter tray can make life a lot easier.

I have found enormous hoards at the bottom of the cage before now when changing substrate! But perfectly ok dried food.

[Kyrkogrimr]

That's a fair point about varying levels of food possibly making them anxious, Serendipity. If I adjust how much I feed it tends to be in response to the hoard getting smaller - as you say, the food is hardly expensive in the grand scheme of things. I have had to prune/adjust a few times with Cadmium when she ended up with genuinely ridiculous hoards of the overflowing variety lol

[gtyatt5]

A beginner's two-bits...

Our Syrian nests in a tubed tunnel area, complete with bedding (a mix of Carefresh Ultra and regular toilet paper, with our scents mixed in) and hoards upon hoards of food, plus a lot of poop! Fortunately she pees only in litter sand.

Anyways, we started cleaning her cage regularly at 7~10 day intervals after the first week. At each clean we leave about a fifth of the old bedding and food hoard, but clean out most of the poop. So far, she's been okay with it. She just rebuilds her nest and piles up her hoard again.

Though we scatter-feed daily, she pretty much detects, finds and fills her cheeks and moves it all to her nest in mere minutes. We only hand-feed veggies and protein (hard-boiled eggs, steamed chicken) during playpen hour, and only in small quantities that she munches on the spot.

Through it all, her nest doesn't really smell much. All that bedding, food and poop mixed up together...sure smells a bit stale at times, but no foul odor.

The one problem is she's become ultra-picky with her food. Since we began mixing peeled sunflower and pumpkin seeds into her diet, she's become so lazy to the point she'll refuse unpeeled sunflower and pumpkin seeds.

But besides that, I don't think she overfeeds herself much. She just hoards a lot. And since it doesn't smell much, we're not thinking much of it. Honestly, wouldn't you feel much better if your fridge was filled with food, compared to it being empty?

Best.