Weird food/ treat behaviour?

[rilence]

I would like some advises please; Stardust has stopped picking up sunflowerseeds from my hand for some odd reasons, yet he still will pick up mealworms off my hand. But if I place the sunflowerseeds on the floor he'll pick them up.

Quasar know the difference between the sunflowerseeds in their Hazel Hamster and the ones I bought for them and will not pick up the Hazel Hamster ones that I've removed. (I've ordered Gerri Gerbil from Viovet and they're on the way!).

Not sure what happened though. 

[eleda]

my gerbils will snub treats if they're particularly stressed (like i was just handling them and it freaked them out) but if you know it's not that, Quasar probably just doesn't like the Hazel Hamster Seeds! they probably don't taste as good and he can tell from the smell. Data can be very choosy with treats. he adamantly refuses cheese and when I offered him food-mix sunflower seeds he didn't want them either. I put it down to he identifies the food-mix seed as part of his regular diet and thus its not really anything to get excited about. I mean if I offer him a bit of his food he's gunna totally ignore me lol. Anyway, I get my sunflower seeds from a feed store and they've always been a huge hit! Only trouble is, there is a possibility of the seeds having bugs when they come from a feed store. i don't think it hurts the gerbils in any way but it makes things quite gross for you if the bugs hatch and make a home out of your treat tin.

as far as the wont take it off your hand - i don;t think it's anything to worry about necessarily, especially since he still takes other treats. it could be he's thinking "eh well these seeds arent bad, but got anything else? oh, well if youre just going to LEAVE it there..."

[rilence]

Thanks eleda! Guess he's just being naughty and quirky then!