He always chucks the pellets out!

[michyLS]

I give Arlo a Dwarf Hamster food mix (Great & Small Dwarf Hamster food) and he always throws out the pelleted food! Without fail every morning I find them all around the outside of his cage from where he's been digging in his food bowl for his favourite bits and discarded the pellets!
But does this mean he's not getting a balanced diet? He loves the tiny seeds and the dried meal worm in the mix are his favourite, along with the sunflower seeds and peanuts.

[freyashamsters]

Unfortunately those pellets are what contains all the nutrients! (In some cases they are, but a lot of the time they are just put in the bag to make it look like you're getting more food when in reality you aren't and most hams hate them anyway

If the pellets don't look like the fillers then they probably contain the nutrients the rest of the mix cannot give and in that case your hamster does need hem to have a balanced diet.

Here is a video on managing fussy hams:
HOW TO PREVENT FUSSY EATING - YouTube

[pinkneon]

Are the pellets quite big? Some people break them up for dwarf hamsters as they are easier to manage

[cypher]

I've never heard of that food before but I Googled it & it has two kinds of pellets by the look of it, alfalfa pellets (the little almost black ones) which most hams tend to ignore & hamsters pellets, what on earth that's supposed to mean I really don't know!
If he is kicking those out then he probably isn't getting a balanced diet, the mix is very low in fibre & a little low in protein too.
I've found breaking larger pellets up a bit in a pestle & mortar helps with dwarf hams but to be sure he gets a balanced diet you have to employ a bit of tough love & not refill the bowl until he's eaten at least most of it or find a mix he likes better & maybe with a better GA.

[michyLS]

Thanks for the replies. Is there a mix that would suit his needs better then?

[cypher]

Most mixes have something they don't like so much but there are a few good dwarf mixes, the Burgess dwarf mix, a bit too much millet & not a huge range of ingredients imo but still a good mix & available in a lot of pet shops, there's also a couple on Zooplus which are good dwarf mixes, protein is still a little low in both but a few mealworms & a little chicken would help with that JR farms, & the Bunny Dream.

[michyLS]

Thank you!

[flowerfairy]

None of my hamsters like those green pellet things.