Hamster producing white balls of discharge!!! HELP.

Question
Hi there, I was just wondering if you might have come across this before.

My male Syrian (approx 6 months) over the past couple of weeks has starting producing small white balls of discharge when he is in his exercise ball of an evening (when he usually also does his poo's) I have taken these out to look at them and the are a kind of gristle like consistency that disintegrate if you rub them between your fingers, they do not smell and are not sticky or have blood in them.

I have tried to see where he is getting these from and saw him pick one very quickly from around his anus/urine area. He is not off his food or drink, is still very active,and his poo and wee (either white or orange/brown colour) are the same as usual.

He went to the vets recently to have his teeth and claws looked at (before this started happening)and they said he was in very good health.

He has a very mixed diet of fruit/veg/salad/seeds dry mix and the occasional yoghurt and choc drops. I cant think what this could be an am a little worried. Have you any answers? I very much appreciate it and look forward to hearing what you think. Kind regards Claire.  

Answer
Hi Claire

Further thoughts on your hamster - it really sounds as though he has eaten something with fibres.  What sort of bedding does he have?  Is it the fluffy type?  If so, it would be worth changing this for the shredded paper type and seeing if this makes a difference.  

If you do discover the cause of this I would be very interested to know, just in case I come across this again.

Hope he is doing well.

Regards
Sheila




Hi Claire

I'm really not sure what this can be.  Sometimes hamsters can get infections that causes them to have a pus-like discharge, but it is usually wet as you would expect rather than a gristle like consistency.

Is there any way he has gained access to any fibres that he could have eaten?  They do love to pull anything overhanging into their cages, or when out in an exercise ball can feed carpet fibres etc into them?  It might be worth checking.  Have a look in his nest in case he has managed to gain access to something and decided to put it in his nest.  Perhaps he is ingesting some of the fibres.

I'm going to ask around about this and will get back to you if I get any possible suggestions.  The fact that apart from this he is behaving normally is good - if he goes off his food or sits and looks dull, then it is important to get him checked out.  Hopefully there is a simple explanation as to what is happening.

Regards