Scatter Feeding

[pineappleunderthesea]

I just adopted a Syrian hamster and attempted to scatter feed a little but she picked up the nuts and put them back in her food bowl. Should I continue trying to scatter feed or does she not like it?

I also realised that she does not keep things in her pouch for long. If I give her a treat or nesting material, she stores them in her pouch and goes straight to her hideout to take them out. Is this stress behaviour?

[Aegis]

Most of my hamsters have done the same thing with stashing away the food in their burrows, apparantly this is their natural instinct to hide away their food and its totally normal. You could try moving her food bowl closer to her burrow, I did this for my hamster and she seemed less stressed afterwards. This also might make it easier to tell when she is low on food.
-Aegis

[Teddyy]

My past hamster did this, she was new to scatter feeding. I would reccomend just taking the bowl out (unless you would like to moniter her food) but as long as you're not putting food in there for her, it doesn't make a difference. If you scatter feed she has to go around and forage for the food, which is great for them as it reduces boredom and replicates what they would naturally do in the wild. She is bringing the food to her bowl to stash it, which is what she would do in her burrow if she had no bowl, so it doesn't really matter. I don't reccomend taking any food out of the bowl and scattering it again though as it is stressful to remove food from their hoards. Hope this helped!