I made Bernie a little hamster mix!! :)

[Jenibelle]

Bernie gets his lab blocks with 18% Protein, so I know he's getting needed vitamins and protein content through that. I couldn't find a seed mix that I loved though, so I made him my own mix with all organic ingredients. If you believe any of these SHOULDN'T be included in the next go around, please tell me so I don't buy them again. I just looked at a bunch of hamster safe foods and picked them up - but it never hurts to double check and get more opinions.

-Plain oats
-Plain raw cashews
-Peanuts
-Dried banana chips (very few of these)
-Sunflower seeds
-Sesame seeds
-Pumpkin seeds

[cypher]

Those are all perfectly safe although (apart from the banana) very high in fats, healthy fats but still very high, so should only make up a very small proportion of his food.

Just to give you a rough idea, a quick estimate of the average fat content of those excluding the banana would be around 35% (a lot higher without oats to bring it down) & his diet should be somewhere around 8% fat.

[Jenibelle]

Oh boy! So what kind of things (other than oats) can he have in his mix that are healthier for every day consumption?

[cypher]

There are lots of things he can have but making your own mix to add to his blocks isn't as simple as it sounds!
There's a bit of a discussion on making your own mix in this thread.
You need to keep the balance of protein, fat & fibre right which isn't easy to do, the reason most people stick to buying the usual hamster foods. They need the right mix of grains, flakes & oily seeds or nuts, a ratio of about 70/30, with animal protein, herbs & veg just for starters.
A mix like your nut seed one would be fine in small amounts as a treat once or maybe twice a week but not as a main food.

[Pebbles82]

Hi there. I actually had a recipe written down based on something I found on a German site, but never got round to making it. As you say, yours doesn't have to be exact as Bernie is getting the Harlan blocks as well, but it helps give proportions. I'd be careful with Peanuts and only put whole monkey nuts in - they need to be human grade peanuts (as with birds) as with pet peanuts they can have some mould spore that is toxic to pets. I just get bags of roasted monkey nuts from the Supermarket.

Am just looking to see if I can find the recipe I based mine on, for the proportions.

It was this one, posted in translation by The Feldhamster (an Austrian member), from the German site die Brain

For syrians I did a translation of the recipe from diebrain.de (one of the most respected German sites): 200grams 5-cereal mix from organic store (usually millet, barley, oats, rye and wheat) 100grams small seed mix (eg a good budgie feed) - this could also be less because most syrians don't like the small seeds that much. If you do use a budgie feed make sure that it's only seeds and nothing else (no "special" ingredients or oyster shells or such stuff). Your best bet is to look for a feed that's intended for germination. Eg. I use JR Birds Fresh Budgie Germination seed mix as the basis for my own feed mix. 100grams multi-grain muesli or multi-grain flakes/rolled grains - flakes are ok for syrians and can even be beneficial for old and weak or growing animals. (You would prefer real grains over flakes for diabetes-prone dwarfs but for syrians flakes are ok if you can't get grains). 100grams dried veggies (eg. carrot chips, zucchini chips,...) 80grams insects or animal protein, preferably from different sources (eg. meal worms, dried grasshoppers, gammarus=small dried shrimp, bombyx mori larvae=silk worm larvae) 100grams dried herbs and/or dried flowers - might be less because many syrians are not that keen on them 50grams nuts and fatty seeds - peanut, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds,... 50grams "treats" - flaked peas, unsugared cornflakes, rice flakes, dried fruit (only if the muesli mix used does not contain any fruit)

The balance is much more towards grains than dried fruit or nuts. Also you need to check any dried fruits are preservative free.

I actually found a really nice organic muesli I was going to use as a base - no preservatives in the fruit either. By the time I had sourced all the ingredients it was going to work out really quite expensive! Although it would have made quite a large amount. I decided I couldn't make my own mix as an alternative to a hamster mix, due to the added vitamins and minerals in commercial mixes, which are essential really, and I don't know there's an easy way to add them to a mix - commercial companies have processing equipment.

But if you're making a mix as a supplement to the Harlan Teklad blocks, the recipe might be helpful for proportions. As long as he actually eats the Harlan! It's also quite hard to find organic bird seed (in the Uk anyway).

These are the ingredients I was going to use, based on that recipe, and what I could find:

Petwood organic muesli, fruit and seeds (oats, barley, rye flakes, toasted barley, sultanas, apricots, sunflower, pumpkin, sesame, linseeds).

Buckwheat grain, spelt grain, puffed rice, hemp seeds, brazil nuts, millet flakes, lentils (all organic) The lentils are 30% protein but its incomplete protein so needs to be eaten with grains, so I was going to use an organic soup mix containing pearly barley, green lentils, yellow lentils, red lentils, peas, split red lentils.

Finch organic bird seed mix: black sunflower, wheat, white millet, red millet, niger seed, canary seed, oil seed rape.

I was also going to add organic dried cornflowers and marigolds, plus mealworms.

No quantities or proportions there, just ingredients. I was going to base the proportions/quantities on the die brain mix.

As Cypher says, you could make quite a nice supplementary food with those kind of ingredients if the quantities are in proportion - either that or I just feed some of the ingredients as occasional treats now, as a supplement to a hamster mix. The danger of making a nice tasty, balanced mix is he might not eat the Harlan!

As it can be a worry making sure they get the correct protein and vitamins, I prefer to give Harry Hamster and supplement with fresh veg and occasional fresh food, and the odd pumpkin seed, or healthy hamster treat, plus porridge I do sprinkle a few cornflowers and marigold petals in his cage now and then, and small rosebud petals - he sometimes eats the cornflower and rose petals - just the odd one.

[cypher]

My problem with that basic german recipe is that individual grains, flakes, seeds etc vary widely in their nutrient values so you could get lucky & make a mix that is close to the required amounts of nutrients but you could just as easily be way off the mark.
If only fed in small amounts & the majority of the diet was lab blocks that might be ok but if say you were to do half & half with the blocks it would need to be reasonably close to the required amount of protein, fat & fibre.

[Pebbles82]

I agree - it is hit and miss as to what nutrients they would get - some of the ingredients are there for ideas to make treats with maybe or as an occasional supplement - I actually think to source all those ingredients for a mix would be pretty time consuming and expensive as well. What really made me give up on it was the need for added vitamins. Charlie is very healthy on Harry Hamster and supplements

[cypher]

I don't think it need be that expensive but working it all out is time consuming, I've spent hours tweaking my recipe & I'm nowhere near done yet!