Hiding Food

Question
I have a dwarf hampster and she just turned 4 mounths old and all of a sudden she is taking her food from the dish and hiding all of it in the corner of her cage under her bedding, but its on the opposite side of her nest. She takes everything except of course the pelets. Why is she all of a sudden doing this? Ive had her almost since she was born and shes never done this and she does it to all of her food except she doesnt seem to be eating most of it. Im pretty sure this is normal but is there a specific reason that she does this?

Answer
Dear Misty,
thank you for your question.
It's normal for hamsters to hide food in their cage, it's an instinctive reaction. They need a huge supply of food to get over the winter in the wild. Some types of hamsters are known to hoard up to 5 kilos of grains ect. in their tunnels. There's a German word "hamstern" meaning buying a lot more food than you need at once, because of this behaviour.
That she didn't do it before might have something to do with the fact that she wasn't fully grown before and she starts to become an adult now.
You can feed her a bit less, about one tablespoon of food per day is enough, but you might need to adjust the amount depending on how active she is. I think she doesn't like the pellets and I never had a hamster who did, I always feed food without pellets and with only very few peanuts (can contain fungal spores) and sunflower seeds (too fatty).
I hope I was of some help to you
Jennifer