Why do my hamsters only eat sunflower seeds?

Question

I have two Winter White Dwarf Hamsters. I feed them Nutriphase Gold for hamsters/gerbils. It has a variety of different foods in it, including sunflower seeds. My hamsters seem to only eat the sunflower seeds! Sometimes I take something else from the bag and stick it in their mouths but the spit it out and get a seed! What is wrong here?

Answer 1

Hamsters are like that. THey are picky little rodents. And yeah, my winter white dwarf hamster nearly ONLY eats sunflower seeds. Don't need to worry. As soon as it learns to know that life isn't just sunflower seeds, it'll start liking the rest. YOu should give some fruits to your hamster. But please, no citrus fruits. (e.g. oranges, lime, grapfruit, lemon etc.) Hahah! Stuffing your hamster's mouth! I used to do that... except i just use sunflower seeds. If you really think this is abnormal, go to the vet.

Well hope this helps. =)

Answer 2

nothing is wrong, they just love the taste because they're sweet and have lots of tasty fats- like potato chips for humans. but they're really not good for them. it can put too much oil and salt into their diet. try to limit the amount they eat by picking them out or getting a food without them in it. try also supplementing their diet with fresh snacks like apples, carrots, etc. or get snacks like yogurt chips that are especially made for hamsters. it's pretty much a guessing game getting them to try different things and see what they like. hopefully they'll take to other things and not want to eat just sun flower seeds!

Answer 3

Sunflower seeds are kind of like junk food for hamsters. They love them and they're ok in moderation but can cause health problems if fed too much (they're very high in fat).

It's bad for them to only eat the seeds, I would remove them and keep them separate as occasional treats. If they aren't eating the pellets then they aren't getting complete nutrition.

Answer 4

Many animals seem to like them. It's like junk food I guess. Need to watch that they aren't getting too many and maybe choose a food that has none at all. They can cause all sorts of weight issues and malnourishment issues because they will eat those first and hold out for me.

Answer 5

I have two winter white hamsters too and I faced the same trouble with them. They used to eat only sunflower seeds and leave the rest of the food. It is their version of KFC and can make them fat and unhealthy since sunflower seeds have a lot of fat in them. Slowly I have turned around their eating habits in the following way -

Firstly, I picked out all sunflower seeds from their commercial food mix which I put in their cages. My hamsters were agitated for a few days over this, they used to dig the whole cage looking for seeds but after a week they got over this habit.

During the week when they were agitated without their seeds, I put in lots of other treats in their cage like small bits of cheese, cornflakes, carrots and rice crispies to distract them from their seeds.

My playtime with them is an hour in the night and during this time, I used to give them the sunflower seeds as treats from my hand (not more than 5 seeds a day)

Slowly but surely, after two weeks, my hammies had gotten over their habit of eating only seeds and had started eating other food as well. They now associate seeds only with playtime.

Hope this helps! Remember they are also like us who take to junk food so be very patient with them until they learn to eat other food too.