Help with homemade mix sources

[ToastieHammy]

Hi all,

I'm interested in starting to create my own homemade food mix as my little ham has been on the lower end of the average Syrian weight since I got her so would like to be able to tailor her food more specifically, especially as she gets older. I'm absolutely willing to do all the research it requires, but I'm not entirely sure where the best place is to find out the actual nutritional values of raw ingredients. Is there a particularly good website anyone has used before? At the moment I'm looking at this: https://www.nutritionvalue.org/Oats_...nal_value.html, but I'm not 100% sure if I can use the DV values here or need to calculate my own percentages.
Might be a stupid question, but better to check than use the wrong values! I'm also going to try and buy most of my ingredients from ratrations, they have values for some of the ingredients I want to include but unfortunately not for a lot of the grains.

Thanks

[souffle]

I'd really encourage you not to make your own mix. It's best to use a tried and tested quality food and supplement with fresh foods and extras as you see fit. It really is a minefield and no matter how your calculations work out you cannot make your hamster eat what it doesn't want so you don't really know what proportions they eat anyway. Enen the ratrations mixes state they need supplementing with vitamins and other foods

[ToastieHammy]

Hi souffle,

Thank you for your advice, I will stick to commercial foods

[Ria P]

Aside from a good commercial hamster mix like Harry Hamster plus fresh veg and a bit of fruit you can easily fatten your hamster up with plain porridge, boiled egg, boiled chicken, cheese, extra sunflower seeds, nibble sticks, boiled pasta or potatoe, nuts, a shreddie etc, all in tiny, hamster sized portions of course and not all daily. Some like milk and plain yoghurt, mine doesn't.

[ToastieHammy]

Hi Ria P,

Thank you so much I will try some of those options!

[xskyebear]

My syrian hamster really enjoys Higgins Sunburst Gourmet Food Mix for Hamsters & Gerbils along with 1-3 blocks of Mazuri Rat & Mouse Food for her main food mix. The rat and mouse food really helps with protein. I personally sometimes put a tiny pinch of flax seeds in my hamsters dish with the seed mix. Flax seeds help with hair growth and healthier skin. My hamster also enjoys plain yogurt, carrots, cheese, and mealworms for treats. If you are going to include any of these treats with the mix of Higgins Sunburst and the Mazuri Rat & Mouse food, be sure it isn’t daily and it’s in very tiny portions.
I hope some of this helped with what you can start feeding your hamster.

[ToastieHammy]

Thanks for the suggestions xskyebear!!

[LilacTofu]

Super unpopular opinion here, but I think you should totally create your own diet for your ham if you'd like, and you can even do it without calculating every little detail, too. Just think about it for a moment: do you honestly know what the exact percentage of protein, fat and fiber is in every single meal you eat? Do you actually know how much calcium there is in your dessert? The answer is no, but you're still very much alive and most likely not suffering from any illnesses related to your diet.

The key is actual variety as opposed to a standardized mix. Wild hamsters don't eat a specific ratio of this and this and some of that. They eat whatever they can find and it just so happens that things usually balance out over time because there is quite a bit more variety in the wild than there is in most captive diets because of the seasonality of food and because of the opportunistic nature of rodents in general.

So yes, it's not a good idea to create a mix if you don't know everything there is to know about the nutritional needs of your hamster, but you don't have to create a mix to be feeding her properly. Just feed her.. food. Lots and lots of different food. Omit anything that's unhealthy (refined grains, sugar, greasy people food .etc.) or toxic (alliums, chocolate, bitter almonds .etc.) and feed with a bit of an eye toward what she's getting from that food.

Maybe give her a dollop of unsweetened yogurt for some natural vitamin b12 one day, then give her some spinach and collards for calcium, iron, vit C and such the next, then give her some cooked beans for fiber and so on.
Offer a variety of grains, such as oats, millet, flakes of barley .etc. and limit fattier additions like sunflower seeds and flax and don't worry so much about the numbers. Just use common sense like you do with yourself and your family. As to where you should source your foods.. the hamster doesn't mind either way, but health food stores are a pretty good place to start. One small bag of oats or buckwheat will last pretty much forever and you're paying for quality, human grade items. When you buy a package of hamster food? Not so much.

True, your hamster won't eat everything you give them, but that's not necessarily a problem if you're offering them a wide range of foods. There is more than one source of calcium for example in a diet based upon variety whether that source is sardines w/ bones, sesame seeds or broccoli. My syrian boy, Nibs, eats NO commercial foods whatsoever. This evening he had fresh basil and oregano, green cabbage, some carrot, frozen blueberries, half a strawberry, a bit of yogurt and one drop of extra virgin olive oil. He had some diluted tea as well which was mint tea and black tea brewed together 50/50 with no added sugar or milk/cream.

You also do not have to offer vegetables and fruits (well, I'd limit fruits if you had a dwarf heh) in tiny portions or in an infrequent manner imo. A majority of what Nibs eats is, in fact, made up of vegetables and fruits. He doesn't suffer from diarrhea due to the water content or any of that nonsense. Animals DO know what they need to an extent and they won't fail to eat enough calorie/protein rich foods, trust me. I'd also always research lists of "toxic/nono" foods you find on the internet because sometimes there's no basis/evidence behind people labeling a specific food as "toxic" and often you can find more information as to what is good or bad/toxic for a hamster by looking at research done on hamsters for one reason or another.

For example, alcohol is often listed as "toxic", but in actuality a lot of rodents (hamsters included, rats too) have a much higher tolerance to it than WE do and so long as you aren't actually getting your little friend drunk, a small sip here and there if they happen to like it isn't going to do.. anything really.. so it's not exactly toxic. Alcohol doesn't actually have any food value and I'm not suggesting we all start giving our hams shots of vodka or anything, but you get the point, yeah?

[alpacassei]

In sorry but theres a huge difference in purposely feeding your hamster a nutriinally balanced diet which they have no choice but to eat and making an active decision to feed yourself an unsuitable diet.

If you cannot ensure your hamster is getting the correct amounts of each nutrient and is being fed a species-appropriate diet then youshould not be creating your own mix. Just because your hamster can survive of its current diet does not mean its the best option. Humans can survive on chicken nuggets and cheese burgers and may not show outward signs of illness but the longterms effects of a poor diet compared to someone who eats a healthy balanced diet are huge.

Also please please do not give your hamster tea. Its completely unnecessary and the caffeine is mot good for them.

[LilacTofu]

So basically, not knowing what happens to be in each and every bite you eat, nutritionally speaking, is consuming an "unsuitable diet"? See, I really can't follow that reasoning. That's the kind of thinking I had back as a teenager when I was diagnosed with an eating disorder. If you're eating healthy food and at least putting in a bit of effort, then you're most likely doing alright. Humans (and all animals that have the fortune of "managing" their own diets) don't die from vitamin deficiencies for the most part because they have access to a wide variety of foods.

My hamsters' diet is just as species appropriate as yours is. That is to say, not very species appropriate at all but it doesn't really matter as long as the hams in question are healthy. Hamsters in the wild do not eat a restrictive diet like most captive hams are subjected to and they also do not drink tea or consume yogurt, but in my defense the dosage makes the poison with caffeine and tea contains antioxidants so while it isn't technically necessary, neither are a lot of other things tbh. That doesn't mean it can't be beneficial. Moderation is key with a lot of things.

I also don't really understand how vegetables and fruits (and the other things my lil' man gets to eat) can be compared at all to chicken nuggets and cheeseburgers just because I don't sit there and micromanage his diet. Olive oil has the same sort of unsaturated fats that sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds have for example, but I did not have any actual seeds on hand and I wanted to give him a bit of fat since everything else he had that night was pretty much fat free.