A hamster that isn’t eating can be worrisome; hamsters can’t speak, so they can’t tell their owners what the problem is. The owner is left in the dark, trying to figure out if the hamster is sick or if it’s just stashing the food somewhere. For new hamster owners, the situation can be frightening and frustrating.
If your hamster isn’t eating, it could be because it’s sick or lethargic. However, the good news is that sometimes when you think a hamster isn’t eating, it is. It’s just stashing its food in a hidden place (or in its cheek pouches) and eating it when you aren’t watching.
Luckily, it isn’t usually all that difficult to figure out which one of these things is going on with your hamster. Read on to discover which situation applies to your hamster and how to save them if necessary.
Your Hamster Could Be Storing Its Food
The first thing you’ll want to do is check all your hamster’s nests. Hamsters in captivity tend to hoard food in their cheek pouches and then store it in one of their nests, away from the central nest where they sleep.
So to check for food caches, you’re going to want to search through their enclosure for every nest.
Because hamsters are nocturnal, you’ll want to avoid searching the nest that the hamster is sleeping inside. Hamsters are grumpy creatures and don’t like being disturbed during the day.
Instead, wait until the evening or some time around dusk when the hamster has woken up, is active, and isn’t in the nest. Check the nest, then.
Also, don’t take any food you may find from any of the food caches. The reason for this is that it’ll stress out the hamster. Hamsters like knowing they have a safe place to hide their food.
Even though they’re in captivity, hamsters still have a biological drive to hide their food away from “predators.” Knowing that they have no safe place to do this can cause them stress. You don’t want a stressed hamster.
You want a happy, active, energetic hamster! So leave the food where you found it and allow your hamster to believe they can safely hide their food.
That said, if you have to clean the area, you’re going to want to remove the food but be sure to replace it with fresh food.
Again, hamsters get stressed very quickly, and you don’t want that to happen! A stressed hamster is likely to stop eating, which is what we’re trying to avoid in the first place.
If you’ve found food caches in your hamster’s nests, then you have your answer: your hamster is eating! It’s just storing food for later consumption, as most hamsters tend to do. If you haven’t found any food caches, read on.
Read Why Does My Hamster Poop So Much?
Your Hamster Could Be Too Stressed to Eat
As they say in California, “Maybe your hamster just needs to chill, dude.” As mentioned before, hamsters get stressed very, very quickly, leading to a loss of appetite. Several things can stress a hamster out and lead them to stop eating.
Loss of appetite due solely to stress isn’t too severe and will only last a few days, but here are some stressors to consider:
- Adding new toys to the cage. Hamsters have an extreme sense of smell, so any object that doesn’t have the hamster’s scent on it will upset them. Due to the lack of scent, adding new toys to the cage can cause anxiety.
- Moving the hamster’s cage to a new location. This one also has to do with the hamster’s sense of smell. A new location means new smells and unknown predators. Until the hamster figures out that the scent in the apartment belongs to a cat that no longer lives there, they won’t be happy.
- Moving your hamster from an old cage to a new one. Again, a sense of smell is the culprit here. For the sake of their safety and survival, a hamster relies on familiarity. Unfami