Making your own mix Questions?

crazygal330 · 08-19-2011, 03:17 PM

It's something I want to do, but don't really know how to start. I don't have any guidlines like I do for the rats. And I don't believe any of the store bought foods are gonna be the best they could be.(sorry, I know everyone here seems to love harry hamster) I make my rats food completely up from scratch, I order individual grains, seeds, dried veg, protien etc.
Are there any books/articles discussing hamster nutrition anywhere? I have a real interest in nutrition and hate buying commercial food because I don't trust it to be any good for my hammy.
couple of things I would change about commercial food mixes if made from scratch:
1)feed straight wheat, or flaked wheat, as opposed to compressed wheat biscuits with unnecessarily added colouring.
2)take out all the alfalfa of compressed grass stuff that I don't see the relevance of.
3)take out the poor quality protein kibble(that in rat pellets is actually associated with mamary tumours and other long term health problems)
and replace with decent protien source, either soya flakes or burns dog kibble.
I'm sure there are other things but those are my initial thoughts.

Any ideas?

mangoandmimi · 08-19-2011, 04:08 PM

i dont make my mix from scratch, but i agree, theres quite a few things i dont like about the original store bought food, even the best ones like harry hamster. I use harry hamster and burgess hamster harvest as a base, and add bits like oats and lentils etc, and with fresh fruit and veg and a few treats, they seem pretty healthy and it all goes down well

it would be fun to make a mix from scratch, but i'd be worried that i'd be missing out vital things, plus prices would rank up really high buying all the ingredients

now that you mention burns dog food, i might add some of those as the hamsters seem to like the kibble bits quite a lot

wandofwillow · 08-19-2011, 10:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mangoandmimi

i dont make my mix from scratch, but i agree, theres quite a few things i dont like about the original store bought food, even the best ones like harry hamster. I use harry hamster and burgess hamster harvest as a base, and add bits like oats and lentils etc, and with fresh fruit and veg and a few treats, they seem pretty healthy and it all goes down well

it would be fun to make a mix from scratch, but i'd be worried that i'd be missing out vital things, plus prices would rank up really high buying all the ingredients

now that you mention burns dog food, i might add some of those as the hamsters seem to like the kibble bits quite a lot

I don't think it'd be that expensive once you made initial purchases. Once mixed, you'd have a ton of food that would last a long time.

I don't know enough about hamster nutrition to offer a lot of advice, so I'm hoping someone who does will. I've been considering doing this myself.

Only thing is, I'm not sure that you'd need a protein kibble / soy if you had something like lentils in the mix? I mean, as a human I eat tons of lentils as my protein source and I've seen them as the main protein (along with things like sunflower and pumpkin seeds) in my hamster mix. Just a thought!

Nikorusama · 08-20-2011, 12:29 AM

I think JR farm wellness is an awesome mix and use that as my base For my robo

I add in 2 types of lentils, oats and trill budgie seed (lots of millet) as well as selective dwarf hamster kibble and a JR farm meadow herbs (except I don't think the meadow herb go down that well so I might stop adding that).
For syrians I am just going for JR farm wellness and JR farm small animal brittle (lots of people with nut allergies use this food alone to feed their hamster with so they don't have to give up owning a hamster due to their nut allergies.)

As you can see I'm a big fan of JR farm. I love a lot of the German products (over there they are so cheap and so natural and healthy, too bad we can't get them cheap over here)

crazygal330 · 08-20-2011, 12:38 AM

I think the initial outset cost seems quite high, but if you consider how long it would last you it is not often that much more expensive. I spent £10 a week on foods for the rats(there are 11 of them!!) which considering how much they eat between them is not a big difference between how much I would need to spend on good commercial mixes anyway.

**Silver** · 08-20-2011, 12:53 AM

Ive done a lot of research into this & have made up three mix's from scratch. Ive tried it on my three dwarfs & have to say they are looking the best ive ever seen them.

I am waiting for the analyst to come back with the vits, minerals, fat, fiber, content to make sure its as fab as I think it is.

for example one mix has 20 different ingredients.

Then hopefully soon you will be able to buy it from a website.