When your hamster is scratching a lot, it can be a cause for concern. After all, hamsters are extremely sensitive animals and are prone to sickness and stress. Any hamster owner is right to feel anxious when they see their hamster scratching so much that their scalp turns red.
The most common reason your hamster is itching is stress, usually due to dietary changes, a change in location, or from being handled or disturbed too often. Additionally, hamsters can suffer from allergic reactions just like humans. Other common causes of hamster itching are fleas and mites.
The above is by no means an exhaustive list of why hamsters itch. For example, some hamsters may have dandruff, while others may simply scratch themselves out of sheer boredom.
Why Is My Hamster Itching?
Read on for more information about why your hamster may be itching and scratching itself incessantly.
1. Itching From Dietary Changes
Sometimes hamsters itch due to dietary concerns. If the hamster isn’t fed a proper diet or isn’t being fed enough, this can result in a lot of scratching.
Hamsters are also sensitive to dietary changes. If a new food is introduced too fast, it can upset the stomach, causing anxiety, stress, and itching.
To avoid itching due to dietary-related stress, here are some tips:
- Introduce new foods slowly over long periods of time.
- Add a small portion of the new food to the old food for a few weeks while giving the hamster less of the old food.
- Continue this for two to three weeks, adding more of the new food and less of the old food until the hamster has slowly adapted to the change.
Other stressors could include moving your hamster to a new location, handling it too roughly or too often, or introducing new toys and other things into your hamster’s habitat.
Additionally, hamsters have an excellent sense of smell, so if you have another animal in the house that could be a hamster’s natural predator – like a cat – smelling that animal could be the cause of your hamster’s stress.
Check out, How To Get Your Hamster To Like You
2. Itching From Allergies
Probably the most benign reason for itching in hamsters is allergies. Most commonly, the hamster is allergic to their bedding or sometimes the air freshener you just sprayed in the air.
Thankfully, all you have to do is remove the hamster