Recovery Foods

[StarlightSerenity]

Is there a hamster version of the recovery foods you can get? Like this - Supreme Science Recovery for Small Animals ? There seems to be a few different ones for rabbits and guinea pigs but I can't seem to find one for hamsters.

[cypher]

Oxbow critical care fine grind is the only one I know of, you can get it from Amazon, Vet UK & probably a few other places.
Be interested to know if there are other hamster specific foods.
In emergencies you can use things like Poly Aid & Spark from the Dr. Sqiggles range.

[StarlightSerenity]

Originally Posted by cypher

Oxbow critical care fine grind is the only one I know of, you can get it from Amazon, Vet UK & probably a few other places.
Be interested to know if there are other hamster specific foods.
In emergencies you can use things like Poly Aid & Spark from the Dr. Sqiggles range.

I have a bag of the Oxbow critical care for my bun, my concern using it with hamsters is the very high fibre content and that it's designed more for herbivores.

The Poly Aid and Spark look quite good useful.

Although not a recovery food, Science Selective is easily ground into a powder and mixed with water I suppose. It's something I've done for an elderly hamster before. Although he was eating himself so I didn't need to syringe it it did help to have such a soft food for him.

Next time I'm at the vets I'll have a chat with them, see what they tend to use. They have an excellent exotics department so I imagine it's something they've had to deal with before.

[cypher]

It is very high in fibre, not something you'd want to give for long but probably ok short term all depending on what was wrong with the ham at the time, I've tried mushed up science selective with an elderly ham & he wouldn't touch it even though he was obviously hungry!
If your vet can suggest anything it would be really good to hear what they say.

[StarlightSerenity]

Originally Posted by cypher

It is very high in fibre, not something you'd want to give for long but probably ok short term all depending on what was wrong with the ham at the time, I've tried mushed up science selective with an elderly ham & he wouldn't touch it even though he was obviously hungry!
If your vet can suggest anything it would be really good to hear what they say.

Fussy monkey I made a concoction of baby food, porridge and SS which went down well. But then Badger ate pretty much anything

I guess that because of the high risk and deadly outcome of digestive issues with rabbits it's more important for them but when a ham has had an illness or surgery a boost of nutrients could help recovery.

[StarlightSerenity]

Had a brief chat with Oxbow on Twitter who say that hamsters can be treated with Critical Care.

However, they also mentioned rats can be given a mixture of the critical care and carnivore care. I wonder if that would be better for hamsters? More nutritionally complete anyway because of the protein etc.

[cypher]

I was actually wondering the same thing as they don't have a mix for omnivores, I guess it wouldn't be too hard to work out something that would be reasonably well balanced for them.