My ham stores all his food!

[badaztek01]

Hi!

I feed my syrian hammy a hamster food bowl of food once a day and he just stores it in some tubes that he has in his cage. He doesnt seem to eat much of it and it just piles up if i leave it. Every week i empty the store and he recreates it. If i leave it longer then it just keeps getting bigger and bigger!!

Am i feeding him too much if he stores it all away?

Thanks

[haziebabie]

I think they all do this to be honest, they really don't eat that much. Its just hamster instinct to have a stash. I wouldn't just keep refilling the bowl, just wait for the store to go down a little. When you do a clean out it's nice to put some of their store back where they like it, obviously removing anything dirty or rotting.

[annc]

I noticed that my first hamster (years ago) was coming out of the top of her house rather than the door. Then I realised that the bottom of the house was taken up with a store!

[badaztek01]

Ok thanks for the advice!!

[souffle]

That is perfectly normal behavior for a hamster. The name 'hamster' comes from the german word hamstern meaning to hoard or store!
Wild hamsters have many kilos of grain in their underground stores and sometimes farmers break into the stores to get the grain. Poor hammies.
Tubes are not an ideal place to store though as they can get musty and damp in there. If you can take off the tubes till your hammie makes another store and is tame, then you can put them back on again in a bit. They don't normally move it back again.
It is best not to feed everyday as they tend to only eat the favourite bits. We feed every 3 days and that forces them to eat a bit of everything. It's a bit like us eating only pudding every day if you keep feeding more and more.
When you clean out, the hammy should have a moderate store, not a huge mound so feed amounts accordingly. If he has a tiny store give more, a large store give less.