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Old 02-15-2016, 02:04 AM   #1
Fluffagrams
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Default Has anyone ever made their own hamster food?

Has anyone ever made their own hamster food?

It's something I've thought about a couple of times but need to do a bit of research so I know what I'm doing before I give it a go. Can anyone recommend a recipe or have any experiences that they'd be willing to share?
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Old 02-15-2016, 03:23 AM   #2
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Default Re: Has anyone ever made their own hamster food?

It was something I was going to do, but never got round to as it is quite time consuming in terms of researching and sourcing suitable ingredients. It's quite a big topic! I really wanted a healthy, ideally organic, mix. It is probably achievable but difficult in terms of getting the basic nutrients and vitamins right. In some ways I feel that good ingredients should cover most of this, but the commercial mixes like Harry Hamster have the vitamins added so you know they are getting them.

I did find a recipe on a German hamster website and it sounded quite healthy, but as I say I never got round to it. The ingredients I sourced were going to work out really quite expensive too (although it would make quite a bit of mix). In the end I stuck with Harry Hamster, which I know our hamster eats nearly all of, and supplement with fresh food.

I do wish there was an organic hamster mix that met all the required nutrients and had good quality ingredients, even if it was more expensive. I found it annoying that all but one mix I have found rely heavily on soya for protein and probably GM Soya at that, but then there is no real evidence to show GM Soya is harmful - I did come across something that said it was, but have also come across things that say it isn't.

The one that doesn't use soya is the JR Farm Feast for Hamsters. It has animal products for protein, but not necessarily nice forms of it and I found it smelled so awful I didn't want to use it. Charlie wouldn't touch it either! It's also a quite low in protein so would need a fair bit of supplementing.
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Old 02-15-2016, 04:19 AM   #3
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Default Re: Has anyone ever made their own hamster food?

I tend to mix different hamster foods together to give Chubs more variety as one mix may be boring on it`s own and I find hamsters do become bored with the same mix. I currently use:

JR Farm dwarf mix

Burgess Supahamster

Supreme Science Selective

Millet spray

Crunchy trail seed mix (Lidl) these contain shelled sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds. I mix some into my hamster food

You can also buy various healthy nuts and seeds in small packets in supermarkets to crush up and add in. All healthy and better than pet shop bras/treats.

I find doing it this way works well and you can pick and mix really if one food isn`t liked and switch to another.

I recently bought a bag of Bunny Dream hamster food from Zooplus at £5.99p and was disappointed with it as it was full of pellets and whole oats with sharp ends. It looks more like a rabbit food that`s overpriced. Won`t be buying it again. x
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Old 02-15-2016, 05:03 AM   #4
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Default Re: Has anyone ever made their own hamster food?

The only person I remember saying she makes her own mix (or I think I do!) is Hekomi but I'm not sure if she means from scratch or mixing different ham foods or seeds with lab block type food, you could ask her.
It is something I have thought about & spent quite a bit of time researching but it isn't easy, there are some really useful German pages that give helpful info like the different percentages for the various types of food, not just protein fat & fibre, but different food groups, I can probably still dig out some links if you're interested.
Sourcing all the different ingredients isn't that easy here in the UK, I have no doubt it could be done but would take a fair bit of work to figure out exactly what you need to put in & where to buy it all!

RH I think a lot depends on your expectations of what a hamster food should be like, the German foods do tend to look a lot more natural than the foods we generally find in the UK, a lot more herbage, dried vegetable, animal protein & less biscuit type bits, there's a lot more to Bunny than oat groats & pellets though!
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Old 02-15-2016, 05:49 AM   #5
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Default Re: Has anyone ever made their own hamster food?

None of mine like the peanflakes black logs green rabbit pellet things or many of the biscuits!

Do you have a link for the german food cypher? I would love to make my own but not sure how to. Interesting thread fluffgrams.
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Old 02-15-2016, 06:27 AM   #6
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Default Re: Has anyone ever made their own hamster food?

I have so many book marks it takes me ages to find anything lol! but these are a few of the pages I've looked at, in German so you will need Google translate, scroll down a bit with the first one to find a recipe.
HAMSTER INFO - Ernährung
Some more info here too
ZWERGHAMSTER INFO - Ernährung
Zwerghamster Info - natürliches Futterspektrum von Hamstern

Personally I wouldn't use pre mixed budgie seed or bird food as part of a mix but (if I ever did it) would use individual seeds for that part.

The other thing to bear in mind is that the foods most of us buy have added vitamins, although it's rare for any ham to eat everything in a mix at least you have some idea of what they are getting, judging the vitamin & mineral content in a home made mix can be difficult & a bit hit & miss depending on the quality of your ingredients.
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Old 02-15-2016, 06:31 AM   #7
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Default Re: Has anyone ever made their own hamster food?

Good point about the vitamins. Its just that all four of my hamsters leave sooo much of their food. They do also have porridge a few times a week and fresh greens.

They seem to like seeds the best. I feed a mix of burgess dwarf, mr Johnston and harry hamster. Run out of science selective but will get some in soon.
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Old 02-15-2016, 06:36 AM   #8
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Default Re: Has anyone ever made their own hamster food?

Mine, all dwarfs, are very partial to their seeds too & their veg!
I use JR Farms, Bunny dream, Rodipet, Ratrations & Burgess dwarf mixes plus a bit of Oxbow with mine, I'm almost out of Burgess & might skip that one when it's gone as it's not a favourite & I'm not overly impressed either.
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Old 02-15-2016, 08:36 AM   #9
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Default Re: Has anyone ever made their own hamster food?

I stumbled across this German website that might be of interest. It sells pre-made mixes but also the separate ingredients : Mixerama. I'm still trying to figure out if they ship to the UK though.
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Old 02-15-2016, 08:42 AM   #10
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Default Re: Has anyone ever made their own hamster food?

Thanks Ruby, I missed that one & it looks as though they do ship here https://www.mixerama.de/versandinformationen All the similar sites I've seen don't appear to, have to have a look round now!
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