How Does a Hamster Find Food?

Nighttime Activity

Hamsters are small rodents. In the wild they are native to southeast Europe, western Asia and the Middle East. Hamsters live in underground burrows that they dig themselves. Due to the hot climate of their native habitats, they spend the daytime hours inside their burrows, and forage for food during the cooler nighttime hours. Foraging at night also helps them to avoid being detected by predators.

Foraging for Food

Hamsters do not see very well. What they lack in sight ability, they make up for in their ability to smell. They use their acute sense of smell to find food. Hamsters are omnivorous, meaning they eat both vegetation and meat. Most of their diet consists of fruits, grasses, roots, seeds and nuts. On occasion they eat bugs, eggs, small reptiles and small mammals. In a hamster's native habitat, food is often scarce. These small rodents have to search far distances to find food. Hamsters are very active; they have a lot of energy and are quick runners. They use their energy and speed to run as many as eight miles a night to search for food.

Storing Food

Hamsters have pouches in their cheeks that they can store food in. They have two cheek pouches--one pouch in each cheek. These cheek pouches, when full, make the hamster's head look twice its normal size. Hamsters can carry an impressive amount of food in their cheek pouches. One hamster was found with 42 soybeans in his cheek pouches.

Hamsters use their pouches to carry food that they have found during foraging, back to their burrows. Hamster burrows consist of separate rooms for sleeping in and going to the bathroom in, and multiple rooms to store their food in. They store each type of food in a different room.

Hamsters store food in their burrows for use when food is scarce or for when weather is too cold to forage. These rodents are hard workers and efficient foragers. Hamster burrows have been found with 200 pounds of stored food in them.