poo spitting????....... huh?

[kimlck]

well the reason why I ask I've never seen any of my other hams do it and it kinda surprised me.
moomoo had just gone back into her cage after ball time, she had a bit of a wander and then she stopped in the corner for a wash, face, ears then feet. she bent a little more forward and up popped her head and she seemed to be spitting poo, she did this 3 or 4 times and it did surprise me,
is this normal?
it was quite fresh cos it was lighter in colour than the drier ones that I had just finished picking out!!!
perhaps it was revenge for me giving her a spot clean as she is a stinky beastie.

hope someone else has seen their hams do this.

thanks!

[jess32247]

My syrian does this all the time. She likes to sort her nest area and make it all cozy and clean, meaning whatever poops she did in the immediate area will be vacuumed up and put into her food stash corner lol! Silly thing hasn't realized that poop shouldn't go in with the food, so needless to say, I end up cleaning out her stash/nest often

I believe hamsters do this because they are coprophagic, meaning they eat there poops to take nutrients that weren't absorbed the first time around. But as you already know, hamsters naturally hoard food so they can eat it at a later time, so in this case the poop IS the food lol! Nothing at all to worry about, just make sure you keep her nest clean and maintained

[gutterglitterxx]

My Cheeto has done this. Often when she gets comfortable after running around on the couch, she gets into what I call the "buddha" position. She then grooms and does the poo spitting, usually 3 or 4 rapid fire. I always try and tell her it's not very lady-like!

[Tutu]

Gertrude does that all the time as if she flings her poo to see how far she can throw. I put it down they being very very clean and lady like Hehehe
Don't you just love laughing at them when they do/

[Scampi16]

Yeah my hammys do it all the time esp my Syrian Sirius.
He likes to sit in thislitter tray or sand bath have a wash sit down in a funny position, then the head goes down then up and spit, so funny, my OH saw this and was wondering why he did this (first time he saw him do it).

[Amethyst_ice]

They can pull their own poops out while siting and when rearranging their nest throw ot poops, nothing to worry about

[Susie]

Yeah, all mine do this.. they are funny little creatures.

[Sandti]

My girl Zoro flung poo at this guy I didn't like who was trying to pick her up. It was amazing XD

[Pouches]

It's completely normal, and absolutely necessary. What she is doing is sorting out her normal feces from what's called a "night feces"
Hamsters have to re-digest their food in order to get all of the nutrients, the predigesting primarily occurs when they are sleeping (hence why they call them night feces). You should be able to tell them apart from regular droppings because they will be slightly larger than the others and softer. Most of the time, they will eat them immediately however there are some occasions where they will put them in their stash and save them for later.
It is pretty imperative that you don't disturb her during this process because you can adversely affect her nutritional intake.

[kimlck]

cool!
thanks for the replys, it was strange to watch, I filmed it too just to make sure I wasn't seeing things.