Food ideas

[Charleen]

My hamster is about 1year 10months old. She has recently stopped eating as much as normal, and has lost weight. I am going to try some scrambled eggs, cooked oats and some baby food, to see if it's getting to be too hard for her to chew her regular stuff. She doesn't show me her teeth, but everything else has been okay. She drinks and pees just fine. If anyone has ideas of what baby food I should get, I know not to have onion or garlic, but should I get just plain peas or carrots or try mixture stuff?
Thanks for the help!

[PumpKinSpiceLatte]

Make sure to look up what baby foods your ham should NOT eat (meat) and feed her only the egg WHITES too for protein

[cypher]

It isn't unusual for older hams to lose some weight & eat a bit less but it is important to check her teeth, if they are overgrown & you feed soft foods they will continue to grow & can cause damage to the mouth, palate, nose & eyes eventually.
If you can't check them yourself then you may need your vet to do it.

Porridge, scrambled egg (whole egg) are good for building them up, baby foods & mashed veg are good too, you can soak her normal mix if she does have a problem chewing.
Try not to give too much protein as they need less as they get older & too much isn't good for their kidneys.
If she can manage them small pieces of nut, shelled hemp seeds (in the shell if her teeth are ok) & a few extra flax seeds are good extras.

SKB made a thread on feeding elderly hams with teeth problems here.
Feeding Hamsters with Missing Teeth or Who Are Elderly
There's also a thread on baby food here.

[barley]

When my Syrian was old & poorly I gave him the Science Selective pellets soaked in warm water - he wouldn't eat it plain but I would mix a little something tastier in with it like natural yoghurt, canned plain pumpkin (the kind that's 100% pumpkin puree, not the sweetened pie filing), Applaws dog food or some 'just fruit' baby food, then he would eat the lot. It made a nice soft meal for him and I liked it because it was mainly a complete ham food, so he was still getting some good nutrition.

I also gave him scrambled eggs, porridge, millet seeds (tiny so easy to eat, he didn't like them when he was younger but did as he got old) cooked rice and veg like carrot, broccoli, green beans etc that I would overboil so they went really soft and then I could mash them. This would remove some of the vitamins though, so I'd add a few drops of the Johnsons hamster vitamin solution to it.

He didn't seem to have any tooth trouble, just went off his mix and favoured soft foods. I'd give him a 'meal' every night of the Science Selective & extras mixture which he would eat all in one go, and then I left millet seeds, dry oats, rye flakes, flax seeds etc... all little things... in a bowl in the cage which he could eat if he wanted, along with a little bit of hamster mix, just in case (but he very rarely ever did).