Homemade Hamster Mix

[Almi]

I first started mixing hamster food about 13 years ago. Back then, I would simply mix together several commercial rodent mixes of the best quality I could find. A few years ago, I decided to try mixing more single ingredients. There are several aspects during food mixing that I took into consideration. They are: quality, balance, variety, and practicality. It had to be good quality ingredients that were good for the hamsters, but not break the bank.

First, I'll share the mix I've formulated. Then, I'd like to tell you a bit about it and why it is the way it is.


"Happy Hammy Hamster Food"

Ingredients: Grass Pellets (dehydrated alfalfa meal, processed grain by-products, roughage products, molasses products, vitamins, minerals, soybean oil, preservative), Wheat, Lentils, Seed Mix (milo, corn, millet, sunflower seeds, calcium carbonate), Green Peas, Barley, Oats, Brown Rice, Black-Eyed Peas, Chick Peas, Seed Mix (safflower seed, flax seed, red and white millet, canary thistle, vegetable oils, diatomaceous earth [mold inhibitor]), Seed Mix (white millet, niger seed, canary grass seed, finch millet, red millet, sunflower chips, flax seed, calcium carbonate), Kibble (chicken, chicken meal, peas, potato, poultry fat, carrot, celery, beet, parsley, lettuce, watercress, spinach, turkey meal, flax seed, tapioca, fish oil, vitamins, minerals), Edamame, Quinoa, Mealworms, Pumpkin Seeds, Almonds, Walnuts, Chia Seeds.

Guaranteed Analysis: Protein - 18% Fat - 6.5% Fiber - 15.2%



Firstly, I know that having grass pellets at the beginning make it look horrendous. I actually didn't just add those for filler to make it cheaper, but I did add it for...filler. By which I mean, fiber. The reason the fiber content in this mix is so high is because of those grass pellets. It's certainly not the best quality item ever, but it does have added vitamins, and I do think hamsters need more fiber. I've seen them turn their nose up at fruit and root vegetables and in the same day mow down some grass (and even bark!). They go crazy for fresh grass and other fresh fibrous items (like kale), so I purposefully put a lot of them in there. The only thing that would make the mix better is if I got better quality grass pellets...but I think the quality of the rest of the mix evens things out. What do you think?

Beyond that, this is a compilation of the best quality items I can find easily and for a good price. I could vary the diet a bit further, but most other items I can find are similar to one that is already present, and usually more expensive.

I hope you guys like the guaranteed analysis. I started my proportions with some...educated, experienced guesstimation? Then with a little bit of tweaking, I came to these percentages. I


Lastly, the price of this mix per pound is $1.25. Here's a pic. Would you feed this to your hamster? Or is it terrible?

[AmityvilleHams]

Processed grain by-products are most likely going to be the lower end by-products which would have no nutritional value,so that alone makes the quality of those grass pellets questionable.Not only is there the likelihood of cheap grain biproducts with no nutritional value,but there are unspecified preservatives in this case which are absolutely not under any circumstances ever to be considered safe as they can include BHA/BHT/ethoxyquin(known to cause cancer,with at least ethoxyquin being responsible for other health problems as well!).

I wouldn't say that food is suitable.There are more than enough safe options,so a homemade diet with inferior quality ingredients is not necessary and in fact can do more harm than good

[cypher]

I think one of the main benefits of making your own mix is being able to use the freshest ingredients you can find so with correct storage a mould inhibitor really shouldn't be necessary.
The other key benefit is to be able to source species specific ingredients so I do wonder about any benefits from using grass pellets, I believe you keep hybrids (?) so anything containing molasses is undesirable & grain by products could be anything & are unlikely to be a slow release carb which is what you want, also added preservatives are something most of us would aim to avoid making our own mix so I would ditch the grass pellets altogether tbh & give them fresh grass & plenty of veg for the additional fibre & quality trace elements.
You have quite a lot of pulses which are more suited to syrians rather than dwarf species, sorry if I'm wrong & you do keep syrians!
The kibble isn't ideal as a part of the main mix, ok as an occasional extra but some of the ingredients are far from desirable & added vitamins won't be aimed at small rodents.
Wheat & corn aren't really idea either & you'd do better to use more millet & add in a good percentage of buckwheat.
You've obviously given this some serious thought & put some effort into coming up with a good mix which is great so apologies if that comes across as a bit harsh but I do think you could make some positive changes to really gain the full benefit of using a home made mix over a commercial mix, I know they can be hard to come by in the US, especially for dwarf species but you can still buy them so unless you can make a mix that is far better in quality & nutrients it's probably better to buy a mix rather than make your own.

[Almi]

I would apologize for being long-winded here, but I'm tired of apologizing for being myself, so I'm just going to warn you guys that this post is long. TL;DR - I highlighted a few key points.

Constructive criticism is great. I take into consideration everything you guys say. I am always criticizing myself to do better, but I'm only one person and one opinion. I want to make this mix better if I can, and I want other people to think it's good too, hence why I've posted it here.

You guys are never disrespectful. If I were afraid of someone being "too harsh," I'd not post. Trust me, I can handle it. I would be very interested if anyone had any other suggestions to make my mix better, so I'm going to give you guys some more info about it first in response to your comments. Feel free to give me all your thoughts; be as "harsh" as you like. I appreciate forum members for their honesty.

I am aware of the apparent shortcomings of the mix. It's important to know that I'm trying to look at the whole picture. I formulated this mix based on what my hamsters favor, what is in commercial mixes, what other people have mixed, and what I think a hamster's diet might look like in the wild. It also had to be cost effective, and it has to be stuff I can get easily. I think most people look for that when buying anything.

Of course, I'm willing to change things, but in general, these are going to be the main ingredients I have to work with. Obviously, we can't give our hamsters the "perfect" diet, because that only exists in the hamster's natural habitat, and honestly, something "too good" isn't natural anyway. We're just looking for the middle path.

Here's my rationale with the grass pellets (I do somewhat question them myself as it's all processed/"fake"...but no one's pets are sick or dying from them, so):

There are a lot of hamster owners who believe that there should be some sort of enriched pellet in the diet of the domestic hamster. I don't necessarily agree with this, but it is one reason I included this item; it's the only one with vitamins and minerals added besides the kibble. Otherwise, I used it as a small base because it was a cheap, neutral item, and I do think hamsters are meant to ingest a lot more fiber than they do with most commercial diets.

One of the reasons the pellets are so cheap is because I can get them in bulk. They are made with mostly processed roughage with vitamins, minerals, and a few other things added. (I over-simplified the grass pellets ingredients list for the Happy Hammy ingredients list.) Though, cheap or not, most extruded grass pellets are like this: processed ingredients with vitamins and minerals added. You'll also find grass pellets as well as kibble in a lot of commercial hamster food mixes, probably because it's the easiest way to add the vitamins.

The preservative used in the grass pellets is propionic acid. I believe this one is considered safe. I'm not overly concerned about the molasses product in it for these reasons: 1. the hamsters aren't binging on it by any means; 2. it's only in the grass pellets, not the entire mix; and 3. molasses does have some nutritional benefits. Though, honestly, I didn't really understand the reason they put "products" after everything. Isn't that kind of redundant? Or does that mean it's...not really molasses?

"Nutritionally empty" roughage probably isn't going to hurt if it's only part of the diet. Even though the ingredients of the grass pellets themselves seem to be lacking since they include processed by-product, there is at least nothing especially questionable in them - it's just fiber. I agree, fresh grass is 100 times better, and they do get that. Just not year round. The hamsters do eat some of the grass pellets, and my hamsters always have more food than they can eat. If they were not good for them and unnecessary, then I'd assume they would either pick around them, or the pellets would cause them to fall ill. So far, there have been no ill hamsters. (FX)

Even though the pellets do have shortcomings, they do also have some benefits. They are very cheap, easy to get, easy to eat, and they are close to the percentages I wanted to end up with, which is why they worked well as a base. Again, I think of them as neutral. They aren't the main source of nutritional value, but they don't seem to be malevolent either. A neutral item in a sea of good quality items probably isn't harmful. What the mix lacks in the grass pellets department, I think it makes up for in all other departments.

I don't want to take the grass pellets out entirely; I think the hamsters should always have access to grass fiber. What if I replaced these grass pellets with higher quality ones? I considered this from the beginning, but it seems I'd have to make quite a sacrifice in cost and obtainability just to increase the quality of the mix slightly. It didn't seem worth it, especially since I feed fresh along with it.

The diatomaceous earth is part of a seed mix, I don't add it myself. You may be right about it being unnecessary, but it is considered safe, so also probably not hurting anything.

Please, tell me more about species-specific ingredients. I have read that there are certain whole ingredients which should be avoided for dwarf hamsters because they are too high in sugar. However, I just can't get on this bandwagon. I believe that if sugar is in a whole food, it's okay. Not that hamsters or anyone else should binge on sugar in any form, but it being part of the diet (especially in the form of a whole food) isn't going to hurt.

Aside from tiny amounts in the pellets and kibble, the only thing in the mix that I could find which had sugar in it were the peas. I'm not going to count the corn because there's barely any in there - but I do use a good amount of peas, collectively. The chick peas are highest in sugar at 11.4% sugar, the black-eyed peas are 5.7% sugar, and the green split peas are 2.8% sugar. The peas altogether make the whole mix 1.3% sugar. That's fairly negligible, and the sugar is coming from a whole food. Additionally, the higher the sugar content, the harder and bigger the pea, so they don't usually go for those right away.

Hamsters were/are probably getting diabetes and other health problems from a combination of stress and only eating limited-ingredient, processed pellets. They were getting illnesses from lack of TLC and generations of poor nutrition; not from varied, whole-food-based mixes with a small amount of natural sugar in it. At this point, I'm not concerned about cutting any particular nutrients for the sake of a health problem. I'm assuming that 1. my hamsters are healthy, and 2. whole-based, varied mixes don't cause health problems. However, feel free to convince me otherwise.

I've heard of many people adding dog kibble to rodent mix. I've been doing it for 10 years with no problems. Which ingredients are questionable, do you think? The amount of any ingredient after chicken, peas, potatoes, and oil is going to be small. Additionally, the kibble is fairly low on the hamster mix list. I add it for a bit of animal protein, not just because it makes it look like a lot of variety with the vegetable pomace. I also shortened the ingredients list for the kibble. If you guys were interested I could make it more detailed. I would be open to taking this ingredient out and replacing it with something else, or perhaps putting less in. It's composition is 24% protein, 15% fat, and 5% fiber. What do you think would make a good replacement for the kibble?

There does seem to be quite a bit of millet already, but I could probably add more millet easily. Why avoid wheat? (And why replace with buckwheat?)

When it comes to vitamins and minerals, I believe bodies are fairly good at sorting out what's what. You'd really have to force or inject something into a hamster to make it overdose on vitamins. We have to think about what's actually happening here: the kibble and pellets are only a portion of the mix; the hamsters are only nibbling at them occasionally, not binging on them. I would say it's more likely for a pet to have health problems due to a deficiency rather than an overdose. I'm not especially worried about it, however, I appreciate the critique because it did cause me to research more.


While I don't think processed foods and added vitamins/minerals are optimal, I don't think that these things being a part of the mix are going to hurt when the main bulk of the diet is good quality whole foods. I would only be concerned about this if I were feeding only grass pellets or only kibble, or if my hamsters started having health problems. On that note, I will definitely let you guys know if my hamsters ever develop any problems.

Honestly, I was under the impression that no one actually knows what hamsters need, nutritionally. Anyone making a hamster mix is essentially guessing. Here is an article I read a while ago before making this mix. You should see the concoctions they fed the hamsters in these studies.

https://www.nap.edu/read/4758/chapter/7#126

What commercial diet would you say is altogether better than the one I've made? We're looking at all of these aspects: quality (how fresh and nutrient-rich the food is), balance (fat/protein/fiber content), variety (number of different ingredients), and practicality (how much the food costs and how easy it is to obtain). I have to say that I think this mix is a lot better than most commercial mixes, and to me that's better than giving up and settling for just any hamster food mix.

I'll share my recipe in more detail if you guys are willing to help me make the mix better!

[Drago]

Personally, I like this mix. Now I do think there are definitely several areas that could use improvement (though this could be said for every mix out there) but all in all, I wouldn't have such an issue feeding this to my hams. This mix is quite similar to the one I've been feeding to mine (granted mine are not diabetes prone species). My diet is a mix of Higgins, mazuri, and oxbow garden select. The protein on this mix is just fine, perhaps a bit high for an older hamster (though some would disagree with me on this point). The fat is also fine. It's the fiber that I like the best! Very few mixes have suitable fiber (ideally 12-20%) so I do like this aspect. I also like that more ingredients in this mix are specified and weighed out accordingly than with many other kinds. It's not a terrible mix, not the best if I'm honest, but I'd have no moral issue with it.

For the negatives, it's lacking in variety. A good mix has a lot of different seeds and items, but obviously the GA of this kind of mix is much more difficult to calculate. Another negative is that it's mainly grass pellets. Now I know this is the aspect that's making your fiber so incredibly good, but grass pellets are boring and often disliked by hamsters. Although, if you say your hams like them, then I suppose there's no harm. Overall definitely could use some improvement variety and ingredient quality-wise, but it's not terrible at all.

I think the thing about this is, that it's really quite similar to the mixes that are sold in pet stores. I think it's a much more honest mix and I wouldn't have an issue using it. Just my thoughts

[cypher]

It's simply not possible to distill countless hours of research into one post so I'll try to go point by point here.

It's true that no one's hams are getting sick or dying from grass pellets but that really isn't the general approach you want to take when making your own mix, you need to ask yourself why they are in the mix in the first place, we have to guess obviously but I would say it's a relatively easy way to keep fibre levels up, add in some extra protein & keep fat levels down & possibly as a base to add vitamins too, if you're making your own mix you can do that without needing any extra undesirable ingredients, added sugars, preservatives etc.
Many hams won't eat grass pellets given any degree of choice anyway so I don't really see any benefit in using them.

While making your own mix doesn't have to be overly expensive I think you do have to give consideration to the balance between quality & economy, maybe our approach is different but for me the whole point of making my own mix is to give only the freshest, healthiest (in terms of both nutrients & enrichment) most natural ingredients I can source, I do understand that this is easier in some countries & depends on budget to some extent but many ingredients can be sourced from whole food stores for example in reasonably large quantities, you don't really want to do much bulk buying anyway as you won't be giving fresh food if it's kept too long, nutrients degrade over time so smaller quantities are better although if you have a lot of hams obviously larger amounts are going to get eaten a lot quicker than if you just have one or two.

When you say you've considered what other people have mixed have you had a look at any of the German info or food sites? It's well worth doing as even though you may not want to or be able to make a mix exactly like some you will find there it will give you a good idea of which ingredients in which proportions may be better.

If you give a good variety of ingredients as fresh as possible you really don't need to be using things like grass pellets of kibble for vitamins or other trace elements.

As for sugars most foods contain some simple sugars so you can't avoid them altogether nor do you need to but you do want to aim to provide ingredients that provide slow release carbs rather than too much in the way of simple sugars, slow release carbs along with the fibre, protein & fat in many natural foods are just what a diabetes prone species needs & are actually healthier for any animal (including us!) not just the more diabetes prone dwarf species.

Wheat doesn't have to be avoided completely but it really isn't the most nutritious food, if you do use wheat it's far better to use some of the older types like elmer or kamut for example rather than the more modern hybrid wheats which are much lower in nutrients & overall health benefits.
I suggest you do some research into other grains & pseudo grains as I can't cover everything here but buckwheat is an ideal food, good nutrients & helps to keep blood sugar levels stable, barley is also another good grain for a dwarf hams & although some wouldn't agree I tend to think oats are a really good food too, preferably all grains should be whole not flaked.

In spite of relatively high sugar levels I do think flaked peas are quite a good addition as they provide a good supply of vitamins & fibre among other things.

I don't think the reasons why some hamster species are prone to diabetes can really be covered here, that's a different topic but I will say that if you can fairly easily provide a diet that will help reduce any risk of diabetes & is so much healthier in general then why not?!
If however what you said was true rather than it being a genetic issue we would be seeing as many syrians, robos & WW's getting diabetes as we do Russian hybrids, Campbell's & Chinese which simply isn't the case.

I don't know how to put this without sounding a bit rude (sorry!) but from my perspective the only excuses we should be making to ourselves for putting any single ingredient in our mixes is because it's the best & healthiest we can find!

In Germany there has been a lot of research into the natural diet of hamsters & a lot of interest & research into how to make the diet as natural as possible, our domesticated hamsters are now quite far removed from their wild cousins so a totally natural diet would be unsuitable in some ways but we can aim to get as close to that as possible.

If you haven't looked already I would have a browse through this thread, you may find some interesting reading & some useful links there.

Has anyone ever made their own hamster food?

The page you linked to can be helpful & is referenced on other sites too but only in relation to basic nutrient requirements, those "concoctions" are fairly typical lab tests not what anyone would recommend as an actual diet.

I don't study US mixes that often, I've been through them a few times with various people but don't tend to retain the information on them as it's not necessary for me to do so generally so I can't really compare commercial mixes in the US with yours, at least not without doing a load more research again, so I'll have to skip that bit!

[Almi]

I thank you guys for the replies. Your insight has been greatly helpful, and so were the links! I did some more research and I have decided on this plan of action.

I'm going to remove the grass pellets, lentils, black-eyed peas, chick peas, and edamame. (I haven't decided if I want to remove the kibble yet.) Then I'm going to replace these ingredients with more grains and seeds.

I'm going to plant some of the items in the hamster food mix around my yard, and possibly sprout some in the winter, along with the vegetables and herbs I already grow. This will be a trial and error test to see how well everything gets along naturally. Maybe I will be able to replace a portion of my lawn with "hamster food grass."

I've identified many natural edible weeds and herbs in my yard that should be safe to feed to the hamsters, as well as a few trees. I have been feeding them several different types of grasses (and grass seed), but I haven't actually identified them.

I'm going to give them fresh plant matter spring though fall, and I plan on drying many of these items to use during the winter.

Here is my list so far. The items with a question mark by them seem to be safe, but I have questioned them for various reasons. To anyone using this list for reference, I recommend using those items with caution, or not using them at all. (I'm either going to try them or research more.)

Trees:
American Linden
Lilac

Plants:
Broadleaf Plantain
Catnip
Chickweed
Creeping Charlie
Dandelion
Goosefoot
Grapevine
Harebell
Herb Robert
?Hop Clover
Horseweed
Lady's Thumb
Motherwort
Pigweed
Pineapple Weed
Shepherd's Purse
Sow Thistle
Wild Violet
?Wood Sorrel
?Yarrow
?Yellow Dock


One interesting item I found that the hamsters really liked were ripe juniper berries. What a nice treat for them.

I'll be back!

[cypher]

That sounds as though it could work well, I'm not sure about all the plants as I don't think we have all of those in the UK or maybe some have different names.
If you haven't seen it there's a thread here on growing sprouts for hams, the indoor way!
Glad they enjoyed the juniper, I've only tried dried & no one was remotely interested

[Pebbles82]

Hello Almi! I am not an expert on mixes and find it a bit of a minefield! I would love to think I could just feed our hammy fresh food like organic meat and two veg every day lol. But I would worry about the nutrition, so I feed a good hamster mix with all the required nutrients and vitamins, and give quite a bit of fresh food as supplements - eg fresh veg every day, nut, cheese, occasional fruit.

I think what a lot of people on here do who make their own mixes, is mix 50% of their own mix with 50% of an approved hamster mix which I believe ensures the correct nutrients and vitamins.

It is very difficult in the US to find a good all in one mix I believe, so I can understand you wanting to make your own. I somtimes think Hammies get more variety in home-made mixes than we humans do!

All I know is they need a lot of protein in the first year particularly, and that is what would worry me about making my own mix - if the protein levels were high enough and whether they ate the protein foods.

I know Harry Hamster is available in the US (as is Hazel Hamster). They are both identical formulas (I wrote to Supreme foods to ask about this) even though the labelling is different for different countries legal requirements.

It's not perfect - it has colourants in and like most mixes, soya is the only real protein in it (which I am not keen on), but it is a sugar free mix and it does contain just about enough protein and all the vitamins and minerals required, plus the pieces are a good size for Syrians.

So if I did get round to making my own mix I would probably mix it 50/50 with the HH or Bunny Dream Hamster (European so not available in the US I think).

I know a lot of people use kibble in mixes but personally I would never use anything that wasn't made for hamsters in a mix. I'd only use original ingredients - which would then make it harder to achieve the protein levels and percentages, which I think is why people do 50/50 with an official mix.

The problem I'd have with foods like kibble is, as with all ingredients they legally don't have to state the content of the "ingredients". So for example "corn flakes" might be listed but the ingredients of the cornflakes don't need to be legally listed (so they could be high in salt or sugar eg).

I don't know much about grass pellets. If you've been using your mix for 15 years and your hammies are all healthy and will eat it, then it sounds like it works for you.

Our last Syrian had Harry Hamster his whole life and lived to 2 years and 8 months (plus lots of fresh supplements) so I have given up worrying too much about ideal mixes - but ..

I wish there was more research into why hamsters get Cushings disease in particular, and tumours. It could be, as with humans, that the older you get the more likely you are to get cancer. Not sure about Cushings. But as Hamsters are omnivores I am not keen on the idea of vegetable protein like soya their whole lives and do wonder if this can be related to certain diseases. Having said that, our Hamster was very healthy his whole life and only deteriorated in the last 3 or 4 months.

[Almi]

Yes, I am definitely going to grow things indoors for the hamsters this winter. We live in an old house with small windows; recently we had a new window put in that allows enough light for some plants. I'm excited.

I've been feeding the fresh herbs and greens to the hamsters regularly, and they love it! No one has gotten sick or anything, everything is normal. Neither I nor my neighbors spray any pesticides or herbicides on our property, so I am not worried about that, but the plants can be washed anyhow. They really like the pigweed and pineapple weed. Pigweed reminds me of spinach, and pineapple weed has a wonderful smell.

What I am working on right now is the new seed mix. I'm pretty excited about this one, I've been putting a lot of work into it. Like I said, you guys have been very helpful.

So far I have found all of the possible ingredients I want to use. All of these ingredients fit the bill for nutrition, price, and availability. For many of the items, I can get them organic without having to spend a lot, and almost all of the ingredients are raw. This seed mix will be fed in conjunction with dried herbs/grasses and fresh foods.

I haven't decided what proportions to use yet, and I thought maybe someone would like to help me or give their two cents on it. Here are the items. (Assume they are the seed, grain, or nut; not the plant or flower.)

Brown Rice = 2.4% fat, 7.1% protein
Sorghum (milo) = 2% fat, 9.8% protein
Barley = 2% fat, 12% protein
Teff = 2% fat, 14% protein
Wheat (Spelt, Kamut, Hard White, Hard Red Winter) = 2-3% fat, 14-15% protein
Buckwheat = 3% fat, 13% protein
Rye = 3% fat, 15% protein
Millet = 4.5% fat, 11.1% protein
Quinoa = 6.1% fat, 14.1% protein
Amaranth = 6.7% fat, 15.4% protein
Oats = 7% fat, 17% protein
Fenugreek = 7.1% fat, 21.4% protein
Caraway = 14.3% fat, 21.4% protein
Soybean = 20% fat, 36% protein
Fennel = 10-15% fat, 10-15% protein
Safflower = 25% fat, 15% protein
Black Oil Sunflower = 30% fat, 15.5% protein
Chia = 33.3% fat, 16.7% protein
Hemp = 36% fat, 26% protein
Poppy = 40% fat, 17.8% protein
Flax = 43% fat, 17.9% protein
Sesame = 49.6% fat, 17.7% protein
Almond = 50% fat, 23.3% protein
Striped Sunflower = 50% fat, 22% protein
Pumpkin = 50% fat, 30% protein
Walnuts = 66.6% fat, 16.6% protein

I have also considered using the seed mixes I have in the current mix, because it would be an easy way to add a little more variety. I'm thinking of also adding some grass seed used for forage feed (example: orchard grass seed), but the problem is, I can't find any nutritional data on it. Thoughts?