[racinghamster]

I feel most of the branded commercial mixes are very much alike and people get fed up with the `fillers` that bulk out these mixes like alfalfa, corn/maize and typically, all the fatty peanuts and sunflower seeds. These are fine to feed, but I feel they are placed to high on the ingredients list in favour or many other grains that could be added instead.

Rat rations website is an example of a site where you can buy many grains and seeds in various quantities and add these to a commercial mix as required, which is basically what I do. But I would also like to see manufacturers replacing these bland ingredients with better choices like:

Buckwheat
Puffed rice
Flaked rice
Flaked soya
Flaked barley
Pearl barley
Flaked oats


These sorts of things and of course, smaller seeds within a dwarf mix like linseed, millets, buckwheat, puffed/flaked rice and generally better grains and seeds than alfalfa and corn.

My chinese hamster loves the Burgess Supahamster Harvest original mix as it contains small biscuits and grains and I add other bits and pieces to this for her. Anyone with a dwarf hamster should consider this mix because the only ingredients that need picking out are the corn/maize and banana pieces. Everything else is edible and can be added to. harry Hamster has huge biscuits which are more suited to syrians.

Because manufactureres don`t take the diabetes concern to hand when making these foods, they add banana chips, corn/maize and sometimes fruit pieces to mixes, when they really should NOT be fed at all. So you definately need to be your own detective when feeding dwarf hamsters as it`s so very important to maintian their health and prevent the onset of diabetes. Because diabetes is more prevailant in some dwarf species and not others and can also be spontaneous/genetic, it`s always a good idea to steer away from anything within their diet that could potentially cause diabetes.