Weight gain diet?

[Cupcake]

Hello everyone!
I have some quick questions regarding Cupcake's weight loss and recent behaviour regarding food.
So around January, February Cupcake was a good 165g and had been so since November, however she started losing weight and dropped to about 155g. I did take her to the vet and the vet did the check up and said that he cannot seem to find anything wrong with her, her teeth were fine, she eats fine and he said she looks and acts very healthy. So I forgot about it for a while...

However, lately she acts like she is starved whenever I open the food bag she runs around the cage and starts smelling around, and this behaviour is something new as before she was obviously happy whenever I was feeding her but she wasn't this overly excited. I feed her as much as before, however she lost even more weight. She is now at 139~140g and I'm starting to worry. She eats just fine and I still give her treats every once in a while....I'm wondering if I should maybe try and help her gain a little weight? I don't want her to end up being a scrawny little thing.

Thank you in advance!

[Queen Of The High Teas]

I have a Syrian boy like this, runs so much on his wheel he runs the wight he's gained off in days. So now I give him timed sessions on the wheel out the cage, and maybe when he's gained more weight, put it in for a few nights again, then giving a break for a few nights after. I've found this helps a lot. Some foods I've been giving him to help him gain weight also is, peanuts, pumpkin seeds,hemp seeds, millet seeds, linseed, egg biscuit, sunflower seeds, naturals herb mix and porridge oats. I bought the seeds of RatRations all in seperate amounts then just mixed them in a tin,and give a pinch or so of them on top of the food every night.

[Cupcake]

See I thought about the wheel being an issue, as she literally runs in her wheel almost non-stop, I spent one night while studying counting how much time she spent running...and she usually runs in average about 4-5 hours a night, out of 10-11 hours active. plus when I let her in her playpen or ball.
But I was afraid that taking her wheel out might result in her being bored?
Has your boy been able to put some weight back on after the wheel in wheel out session?

[Queen Of The High Teas]

Yep I was afraid of him being bored too, until I realised I'd rather he was bored for a bit than way too thin. At the beginning, I also removed most of the toys, especially ones that require effort to climb on /up, so he could literally only wander around the cage or sleep. It worked though, as within a week,or two he'd shot up nicely, so I put them back in. Its the wheel that causes problems, despite me not giving one until he was 10 weeks old, he's obsessed with it, and will literally run everything off. Yes, he does put the weight back on with a wheel in/ wheel out affair, he was 175g last week, I put the wheel in, weighed him yesterday, now he's 164g, so I've taken it out again, and it will stay out until he's at least back up to where he was, preferably more. I would try taking Cupcake's wheel out, and the toys, let her be a lazy couch-ham for a few nights Just be aware, that like us, the less you do the less food you feel like eating as you don't need it, something I realised when I wondered why Sunny wasn't gaining despite the cage being practically bare. You need to get a balance, wheel/ toys out, but about 5-10 minutes supervised wheel time each night, just enough to get hungry, not enough to loose it straight off again. Its basically a diet in reverse, trying to be as inactive as possible and eat as much as you can.

[Cupcake]

Thank you very much for the info. I will definitely be trying this out with my hamster and I will let you know if things are working out for us. She doesn't have a lot of toys to climb on, it is mostly cyew toys I provide her with as she loveeeeesss chewing!
Thanks again!

[Queen Of The High Teas]

No problem, hope it works for you

All my hams are weighed once a week and I keep a record of the weights. That way I can easily see if anything's being gained/lost/no change, and by how much, then adjust the food for a week to compensate.

[Cupcake]

yeah, I keep track of Cupcake's weight in a little notebook too and weigh her once a week. I just took out her wheel last night and she didn't chew on anything she wasn't supposed to (like I thought she might without the wheel)
Hope it's going to work!

[ThePipsqueakery]

The only thing that I found that managed to stop the weight loss in one of my campbell's dwarf hamsters is a little bit of yogurt most mornings (note that she is very old too, so this was a case of old age causing weight loss not illness). Her weight was plummeting and since I eat greek yogurt for breakfast everyday I started sharing a bit with her in the mornings. As soon as I started sharing my breakfast she stopped losing weight. She is still very skinny but the weight loss stopped and she gained a little back. This is unflavored greek yogurt so there was very little sugar or fat in it but lots of protein.