dwarf hamster main food

Question
Hi, i've just gotten a winter white hamster less than 2 weeks ago. I've been researching on hamster's food recently and found out that sunflower seeds are not good for them at all. While the mix food i bought for her contains mostly the sunflower seeds, and the shop keeper told me that's the food she's been eating.I decided to take out the seeds from the mixture, and give her less than 10 seeds a day. But I have no idea whether the other mixture has the amount of nutrition she needs.
The cocktail mix contains a mixture of sunflower seeds, wheat flakes, barley, red wheat, sorghum, popcorn flakes, dried coix, carrot, orange puffed rice, green puffed rice, and shortnose noodlefish.

Im also not sure what's the amount of food she should eat a day, as her food bowl is often empty. I've had to put some food on the bowl at least twice a day. She has also been biting on the cage, as if she's asking for more sunflower seeds. Im not sure what to do, if u can give me some suggestions. Thanks.

ps. feel free to ask me for more description regarding my hamster

Answer
Hi

The most important thing with regard to their food is that they should have a well balanced diet and not too much of the same.  I give mine sunflower seeds and they love them, but they need other things too.  I wouldn't worry about picking them out of her dry mix (in fact with hamsters who have diabetes sunflower seeds are a vital part of the diet#.  They can just be very fattening if they eat too many of them.  The important thing is she has a dry mix available at all times - either top up her bowl nightly or scatter a handful of food into the bedding/wood chip for her to forage.  I tend to vary the mixes I buy - by getting them from different shops they get a bit of variety as some mixes really vary from others.

In addition to this you can add sesame, pumpkin, linseeds.  I also give mine millet - I buy a sprig of this #like the type that people give to budgies and other caged birds# and put this in the cage every now and again and they pick the seeds off it.  

It is also important that the dry mix contains some hard foods so that she can gnaw on them to keep her teeth short. You can always add some broken dog biscuits if necessary.

In addition to this I would recommend that you give her a small amount of fresh vegetables daily, but avoid giving lettuce #or much of it# as it can cause diarrhea.  Foods such as broccoli, sweetcorn, peas, cabbage etc. are fine.  You can also supplement her food occasionally #every couple of weeks) with a small amount of cheese or scrambled egg as this will give extra protein.

Different hamsters like different foods and you might find that she always leaves the same foods behind - this is normal.  The important thing is to try and vary the diet if you can so that you know she is getting a good mix of vitamins and minerals.

I hope this helps you.

Regards
Sheila