Young winter whites food

[CuteLittleCritters]

I have two 6 week old winter white sisters, and when I got them, they were already quite tame, but I wanted to make them even more comfortable with me and did some treat training (give them treats inside their cage/ playpen and then let them walk onto you and give them treats whilst you hold them, petting before each treat if possible but not petting whilst they eat) anyway, I noticed that they wouldn't really take any of the treats so I opened up the sunflower seeds and removed the hearts and they took them no problem.. so I was wondering, do they just not know how to open a sunflower seed? because they go crazy for the hearts but don't even show the slightest bit of interest in the seed if I present it to them whole... I was wondering will they learn what to do? and are there any other foods that I should be aware of this problem with?

[racinghamster]

Hiya. They should know how to shell the sunflower seeds yes. Sometimes they just pouch sunflower seeds and save them for later, but if you find any shells lying around their cage, this will tell you for sure if they are opening them or not.

However, with Russian dwarf hamsters, even if they are pure-bred winter whites, sunflower seeds are high in fat, so as a treat, I wouldn`t use them as a taming/training aid too often. Maybe using a small amount of loose millet in your hand would be better, or offer a single hemp seed? Hemp seeds are sometimes found in canary mix sold for birds, but they can be bought in any supermarket or healthfood shop.

Only use a teeny amount of seed for taming purposes though.