Is my hamsters sand bath too rough?

[Tashik]

Hey everyone! New to hamster central. I got my Russian cambells dwarf hamster about 2 weeks ago. I’ve noticed over the past week she seems to be itching a lot. I just removed her sand bath because I was worried the sand was too rough for her and was causing her to become itchy. She has also had some behavioural changes recently like sometimes she will nibble on the base of her wheel. I was wondering if her ichyness could be connected to this behaviour. She only chews on her wheel for about 10 seconds like once a day, however it is still worrying me. I have her in a 620 square inch bin cage, and have ordered an ikea detolf so that she can get more room. I try to get her out of the cage 4 times a week now that she’s more compfortable with me. I have 7 inches of bedding in her cage. Whenever she chews on her wheel I put more food in the cage and she stops cause her bowl is empty but I’m giving her the recommended amount of food, and I don’t think she is eating it all, because I went from feeding her a little over 15ml every other day to more than that every day.

If anyone has any ideas of what could be happening can you please let me know. I’m super confused and can’t find any resources online to help me with what going on. I just want her to be happy.

[cypher]

Welcome ti GC

What sand are you using? Chinchilla sand (not dust) or children’s play sand are both fine for them, sand actually helps to keep their coat clean as well as them enjoying a good dig & roll in it so it’s unlikely if you use suitable sand that it would cause a problem so I wouldn’t remove the sand bath.
They do groom quite a lot so it may just be that, if you clean the cage they will do a lot of scent marking & grooming so that’s something to think about.
If she really is itchy it could be lots of things, what substrate do you use & what do you feed?
Does she have lots of enrichment & other things to chew in the cage? If you don’t already try giving her a whimzee dog chew, the little toothbrush ones, they love to chew those.
As for feeding, they do take more food at first to start their hoard, they don’t tend to overeat so it’s better to give more than they need rather than less so just keep her bowl topped up.