strange behaviour with food

[fluffychick]

have just spent an hour watching Teddy obsessively attacking his house, lifting it up so that his food store spills out of the bottom, he then pouches all the spilled food, takes it back into the house, de-pouches it then comes back out to attack the house again.

He is scrabbling, digging and biting the house. it won't lift up much as it is on the top level of the perfecto so there is only 1cm between the roof of the house and the lid of the tank. This means that the house is banging loudly against the mesh lid. I can only hope that he will stop soon as I could do with some sleep.lol

It's like he doesn't realise that he is only picking up food he has already stored.

I have tonight mixed in a little harry hamster food in with his usual pets at home muesli as I want to change him over to harry hamster.

He has always accepted other different foods-treats, monkey nuts, fresh veg without a problem.

He initially took some of the harry hamster bits out of the bowl first like he was excited by them, did his usual taking the nice bits to store and leaving the rest and went to play as normal but could it be that the Harry Hamster food being in his bowl has upset him?

[Sandrilene]

i had a syrian that would do that from time to time. never really figured it out. best advice is don`t touch his house except when cleaning otherwise he`ll start over. at least thats what mine did. i didn`t change anything either he just had this weird thing about his house.

[fluffychick]

I had only put the food in his bowl, let him pick out the bits he wanted to store, I hadn't touched the house at all, havn't touched it for days.

Anyway I put him in his ball and removed all the Harry Hamster food just leaving his normal stuff, when I put him back in he continued attacking the house, I went to bed and could hear him banging about, when I got up this morning he has chewed chunks out of the house and moved his bedding to underneath the lower shelf as far away from his house as he can get and is sleeping there this morning, I am wondering now if he was actually trying to move the house to a different location. it won't fit underneath the shelf so I am going to leave it all where it is now and see what he does tonight.

Maybe it's a coincidence that he has done this on the same night as I put new food in, I don't know but he was certainly mad about something. funny little ham.

[racinghamster]

I would remove the house and just give him a pile of nesting material fluffychick. My syrian Boris does`nt have a house. Not yet anyway! :mad: I don`t see the point as he`s never had one and lived in a Rotastak before I liberated him to a Mickey 2XL cage. He stashes his food too but also sits in his dish nibbling away at his jumbo oats.

[Kristin]

My Harley doesn't have a house either and he seems content sleeping with a pile of bedding under the lower shelf in his home. He makes his own nest and makes it as big as he likes. Maybe your hammie was trying to move his house, maybe he didn't like where it was and wanted it somewhere more secluded? Just a thought ^_^

xx

[fluffychick]

I watched Teddy attacking the house again last night and trying to lift it, there is not enough room for it to be lifted over the lip of the shelf otherwise he would have pushed it off.

So I moved the house down to floor level to see if that helps with the remaining bedding that he had left in it. he is sleeping in it again this morning with his food stash back in as normal, so it would appear that this isn't about upsetting him by changing his food, he just wanted to move his house.

As soon as I had moved it he seemed settled again and was playing happily on his wheel and with his toys rather than hours of frenzied scrabbling.

he has pushed the house around a bit but it slides on the woodshavings so I think he has it in a position he is happy with now.

until next time he wants a change. heaven knows what he will do if he decides he wants it back on the top shelf, can just imagine him trying to drag it up the ramp.lol

[Kristin]

Hammies truly know how they want things! True little home makers. You can imagine 'Home sweet home' pinned outside their house lol ^_^

[AliKati]

Hammies truly know how they want things! True little home makers. You can imagine 'Home sweet home' pinned outside their house lol ^_^

Lol, true. Mine often seems to move his bedding to the left left left and then to the right right right and then again to the left left...etc etc

[Katarina]

my ones are like that too! Honey decided she wanted to sleep in the corner where her wheel is so she has pushed and dragged the wheel left, left, left, then to the right and bit more, then she rattled it and kept going. this morning it is in the angle just blocking of the corner where she decided to sleep like a barricade. I thought I'll move it, but honestly, I don't care where she sleeps as long as she is happy. Although, I really dont like the wheel there....;)

[Kristin]

:) I just love their 'this is my home' behaviour ♥

[Holly's Mum]

Holly started doing something like that recently too, not satisfied with any of the THREE boxes he has in his main cage, he decided he wanted to sleep in his "Annex" - the smaller of his two cages joined together with tubes. So he dragged all his bedding through the tubes and under the shelf in the small cage, then he scraped all the bedding and shavings in the cage up into a huge heap in the corner and slept under all that.

BUT I think I have worked out why - I think it's because of the very short, light nights now and the room he is in, is not dark enough. So the last couple of nights I put an old towel over the small cage and left it there all day - problem solved! He's now sleeping happily in the box in there, like beforel, with just his usual bedding material and everything else is undisturbed.

[wiggle'smommy]

Our hams are quite odd little critters aren't they? ;) Wiggles has been doing some strange things... The other night he stuffed his pouches HUGE with food and brought it down to his nest. He unloaded, slept for a bit and then obviously decided it was too messy as he emerged a while later with his food back in pouches, went back up and put it back in his bowl. He is a very neat little hammy, never makes a mess in his nest, never pees in the same place as his food stash... It's really quite sweet! :x