Dwarf Hamster Not Eating Pellets!!

[anniechu87]

Hi there, I just got my 6 month old Russian Dwarf Hamster on May 15th (I've had her for a bit over a week). On my first day, I forgot to pick up a bag of food from PetSmart that they normally feed her (Oxbow Essentials Hamster and Gerbil Food) which is a pellet form food, so I ran to a different pet store nearby and they didn't have the food she was fed regularly at the pet store, but they had the Versele-Laga Mini Hamster Nature food mix, which is more of a grain/seed mix that is supposedly a "complete feed for drawf hamsters". The problem is, after she has tasted this new seed mix, she refuses to eat the Oxbow pellets! I would feel more comfortable feeding her the Oxbow pellets because they're a trusted brand and the seed mix allows for her to be picky with her diet and I don't want that.

I have been feeding her other foods such as kale bits, flaked oats etc and the occasional treat and she has been gobbling them up! So I don't believe she's sick, just being picky. My friend says to just leave the new pellets for a couple of days to see if she will eat them because rodents have a natural instinct to survive and will eat it eventually, but I'm not sure what to do!

Any advice? Anyone had a problem in the past with picky hamsters? She's such a princess!!

[Pebbles82]

Hamsters do prefer the variety of a muesli type mix. That particular one does have a lot of fruit in though so may be a bit high in sugars for a dwarf hammy - best to avoid fruits and sugars as they can be prone to diabetes.

Did you have another thread on this or was it someone else lol?

Anyway I think the ones in the US that are ok for dwarf hamsters are Hazel Hamster (muesli) and Supreme Science selective (all in one) so you could maybe mix those and supplement with seeds - they do like their seeds apparently (Cypher knows more about that).

Any change of diet should be done quite gradually though, so mix the new in a bit at a time before changing over.

[cypher]

I think this is a double post Serendipity, the same member as we replied to here!