Advice on scatter feeding

[pinkneon]

At the moment I scatter around half of Sweep's food. I am considering making it so all his food (except fresh food) is scatter fed - I have a weird phobia about fresh food going bad if it's not in a bowl! However, I have some questions ...

1) If a hamster is totally scatter fed, how do you monitor how much they are eating? Sweep has only just today started pouching food, and it was only once so whether he will continue this is yet unknown. My concern is that he may not eat enough and then he will go hungry

2) How long can food be kept on the bottom of the cage before it should be replaced? Is it likely to go bad if he doesn't eat it?

3) How much do you feed?? Currently he has a scoopful of food at a time. The little scoops I have say they hold around a tablespoon, though I have not tested this. Anything in his bowl isn't replaced until it's eaten, but can I do that with scatter feeding? Or should I scatter it everyday?

4) How exactly do you do it? Currently I just sprinkle it all round the cage, but I watched a youtube video that said you are meant to actually mix it into the substrate to hide it (if that makes sense?) so they can smell it and then look for it. Is this right? Because if so how can you know it's being eaten?

5) Is he likely to get confused, and so not eat? I've heard stories where hamsters will sit where the bowl used to be because that is what they are used to. I don't want him to starve!

I forgot the other question, but if I remember, I will come back!

[cypher]

If he's used to a bowl then change over gradually, put less & less in the bowl each time, foraging is natural & enjoyable behaviour for hams so he should get used to scatter feeding quickly & without any problems.
You can do it more than one way! Scatter some on the substrate but also hide it in places he has to hunt for it but aren't too hard for him, wrap some in little tissue parcels & tuck them away somewhere.
If you do hide it in a few places you can keep an eye on at least at first it makes it easier to see how much he's taking.
Now he's starting pouching he'll continue to do that so you may need to keep an eye on his hoard, don't disturb it if you can avoid it but just have a look every few days to see how much he's hiding in there & too check he hasn't run off & hidden any fresh food that may spoil.
Dry mix will keep for ages in the cage, you can always replace a hoard with some fresh mix when you do a clean or just if you think it's been hanging around to long, put it where you find it though as they are very particular about their hoards!
Sounds like you're feeding about the right amount, scatter feeding is no different to bowl feeding in how often you do it, every few days is fine.

[ayemee]

I scatter feed half of Nova's food. She really enjoys foraging for it. She does pouch all her food to take to her nest though. So every couple of days I just have a quick look into the nest without disturbing it too much to check how much shes actually eaten before I add anymore.

[flowerfairy]

I scatter feed all mine each day. I tried leaving it a few days but decided to do less daily.

Kashi my female syrian has food hidden in cardboard loo roll tubes because she gets bored very quickly. I spot clean most days to get rid of old food lying around.

Any hordes are left alone unless they are wet or rotting, never found a rotting one though!