Making my own mix.

[Bonio]

Right so I want to make my own mix for my hamster but I have no idea where to start.

So what are good things to include?

And what should I avoid.

[GhostsInSnow]

I have no idea about the exact ingredients but you need to get the percentages of protein, fibre etc in the right sort of amounts. A really good basic place to start is the safe foods list on here. It will tell you a lot of the things to avoid :)

[Silver]

Hello there,

The short answer is you can't.

The long answer is:

Do you know what % of Protein/Fat/Fiber hamsters need?
Do you know what are safe seeds/grains/nuts/mealworms/pulses to feed a hamster?

The only way you will know both of these is to do LOTS of research. It took me 12 months research then I found someone to analyse the mix's to make sure they were correct.

The best commercial mix's to buy are Harry Hamster & Burgess Mix for Syrians has a picture of a Syrian on the front

The best non commercial mix's are mine which you can find a link to in my signature

Silver xxx

[Hope]

It is very difficult to make your mix from scratch, but some people start with one of the commercial mixes and then add other grains, seeds, nuts to this, so that you can be sure that they are getting most of what they need from the commercial mix. Here are some threads you may find useful :)

http://www.hamstercentral.com/community/feeding-nutrition/14075-does-sound-ok.html
http://www.hamstercentral.com/community/feeding-nutrition/33868-my-mix.html
http://www.hamstercentral.com/community/feeding-nutrition/26343-what-nutritional-percentages.html
http://www.hamstercentral.com/community/feeding-nutrition/19767-home-made-mix.html

[racinghamster]

I feel it can be done, IF the research and preperation are done and even though a mix may not be nutitionally perfect, as long as it has plenty of variety and contains the main components such as protein, fibre, fat etc...

I use a commercial mix as my `base` and use this as a starting point. If I have a diabetic prone species of hamster (Chinese or Russian dwarf hybrid) I would remove the yellow corn/maize, peas and pea flakes. If I don`t, I leave these in, although I do reduce these pieces as they are the most starchy within a mix and hamsters rarely eat them.

There are many seeds and grains which hamsters enjoy that can be added to a commercial mix to add even more variety, but these have to be safe for hamsters to eat and some need soaking before they are fed, although these are normally supplimented rather than fed daily. Things like Buckwheat, lentils or other safe pulses.

In the wild, a hamster will eat what it can find, so that would be small seeds, grasses, roots, insects, leaves and anything it can forage and store. Captive hamsters can become fat if fed too much fat or sugar in their diet, which means whole peanuts and too many sunflower/pumpkin seeds, so I tend to use these as treats and only feed pieces of them daily.

A nice natural treat is cooked brown rice (just a small amount a few times a week) and sprouted mung beans. Hamsters love both. :)

[Bonio]

I spent a year researching my dogs current diet I think I can research about a hamsters requirements.

Hence my coming on here to find out.. :confused:

[Silver]

You need to do much more research than this forum.

You need to research generally by all the search engines, not just the first few pages. Go onto forums in other country's.

Find & read research papers

Talk to experanced breeders/owners then think to yourself are you happy with what you have been told, does it sound right along with your own research

Then collate that information to get the correct % of Protein/Fat/Fiber

Then you need to research each grain/seed/nut/pulses to see if they are safe for hamsters & what they will bring to the mix.

Then you need to find someone to analyse your mix to see if it is the correct % that you have decided on from your research.

This will then need tweaking several times until you get to the correct%

Then after all of that you need to feed it to your ham to see if all of the mix is eaten, if not you need to start making the mix again with something different to make up the % that they will eat, this can take a long time

After all of the above you will have a much better mix than you can buy commercially

Silver xxx

[racinghamster]

Finding someone to analyse a home-made mix though could prove difficult unless they were an animal nutritionist who would probably be basing their findings on a few science papers? One way of looking at what a mix includes, would be to take a commercial mix as an example and painstakingly remove each grain and place it into it`s own pile. Weigh each pile in turn to get the weight of each ingredient.

But then that only tells us the weight or volume of each ingredient and not the nutritional value of each of those grains? It`s all a bit confuzzling to me! :mad: That`s why so many commercial mixes are all over the place with their typical values and analysis. Even they don`t truly know, or they are basing their own mixes on different findings? Starlight`s lists show that to be the case, so why would one mix be better than another, is what I want to know. Some commercial mixes are not great, while a few are half decent, but still not `right` as far as variety within them is concerned.

Burgess do seem to try their best, but they need to go that bit further and remove some of the naffer ingredients within their mixes and replace them with decent alternatives that hamsters will eat and enjoy. That way, there would be no wastage.

[Silver]

I wish it worked like that RH,

It would of made my life a lot easier lol. The different grains/seeds/nuts/pulses react with each other so the balance of the mix would not be balanced going by weight of each ingredient.

I think any mix alone be it commercial or not commercial is better than making your own mix up, or adding/taking anything away.

It's really hard to explain lol. Take 5g of Soya out of a mix & the protein shoots down a lot more than the weight of 5g & the fiber will rise slightly as the Soya seems to depress the fiber % & so on

But as always that's my opinion

Silver xxx

[Bonio]

You need to do much more research than this forum.

You need to research generally by all the search engines, not just the first few pages. Go onto forums in other country's.

Find & read research papers

Talk to experanced breeders/owners then think to yourself are you happy with what you have been told, does it sound right along with your own research

Then collate that information to get the correct % of Protein/Fat/Fiber

Then you need to research each grain/seed/nut/pulses to see if they are safe for hamsters & what they will bring to the mix.

Then you need to find someone to analyse your mix to see if it is the correct % that you have decided on from your research.

This will then need tweaking several times until you get to the correct%

Then after all of that you need to feed it to your ham to see if all of the mix is eaten, if not you need to start making the mix again with something different to make up the % that they will eat, this can take a long time

After all of the above you will have a much better mix than you can buy commercially

Silver xxx

Busy year for me then. Thank you :)

[Silver]

LOL

I know what you mean!

Silver xxx

[StarlightSerenity]

You'll probably find the German forums a lot more informative than HC where creating mixes are concerned. This is the link for the only one I know of - Startseite - www.das-hamsterforum.de (http://www.das-hamsterforum.de/index.php?page=Index&c065bef7)

Harry Hamster is the best commercial mix you can get in the UK, not sure what country you are in though. I think it's called Hazel Hamster in the US.

I've been interested in exactly where people get their info, in the UK at least, I've yet to find a single scientific paper on hamster nutrition but I'm still searching :)

The HC Wiki has a list of safe foods which might help a little.

[Biscotti]

I think it's great that people are thinking about making their own mixes and that these threads pop up once in awhile. I'm not sure what's the etiquette on this forum in giving specific recipes, but I honestly feel that the hardness of making your own mix is a bit overblown and know that making your own mix can be done as long as you have done proper research and is confident in your critical thinking and analyzation ability.

Reverse engineering commercial mixes is not very helpful as you have no nutritional data of the individual ingredients to work with. A good starting point is to look into what are the ingredients generally available in these mixes and what other seeds and grains that hamsters can eat and that you can obtain in bulk. The important thing is that you have the nutritional data for each of these individual ingredients.

The usual required protein/fat/fiber % you will see on forums are the suggested ideal values and not absolute as far as scientific studies goes (although some people take it that way). For example, I've read published a lab paper that indicated a range of 16-25% protein is ideal (IIRC) depending on a hamster's age and health conditions. As far as individual nutrients such as vitamins and minerals, no one can get around the fact that there's no specific research data available, and that certain amount of faith and guesswork will always be involved in making custom mixes. If anyone has proper cites I would love to read it and improve my knowledge. :)

I want to emphasize that this is not necessarily a bad thing though, as I assume that there will be fresh food supplements, and hams tend to regulate their own eating habits and will naturally eat what they need, with the caveat that treats are not overfed. Hams are like any other animals and their nutritional need is flexible and can be worked within certain range, the important thing is that it works for your own hams.

When you have the proper data at hand and you are confident in your mathematics and unit conversion, make a spreadsheet with these information to help you balance the nutritional values. If you make a proper spreadsheet, the calculation will take into account of all the values you enter as you slowly adjust each ingredients. In the end you will have something much better than commercially available mixes, in terms of nutrition and the variety of seeds/grains.

[Silver]

I have made a HUGE decision over night, I always seem to do my best thinking while laying in bed :mad:.

I am going to back off completely from talking about anything food related on the forum from now on.

I have made this decision due to it's making me feel ill. I literally feel stressed & sick now from worrying about people not feeding a correct mix to there hams.

I have lots of health problems myself & to be honest I do not need the stress of it in my life.

I have seriously considered pulling the hamster mix's off RR. And I will if I continue to feel this way.

So for my own sanity & health this will be my last comment on any food related thread.

I am off to enjoy this forum again & look at all the lovely hams & what they have been up to as this is why I joined HC in the first place.

Silver xxx

[racinghamster]

Just wanted to say Silver that you have done a wonderful job having your mixes analysed and made up for sale, even if you don`t profit from them, which is a real shame. I personally feel there will always be discussion on this because people want to ask questions, and to know more about what`s in their mixes and why. Rat Rations have the resources to make your mixes up because they deal with all the seeds and grains that are required to produce them, but people at home would love to be able to mix their own if they had shared information about what they need in terms of volume and %. If that information is too varied, then it will be impossible for anyone to even try.

So I agree that buying a decent commercial mix is the way to go unless an individual is willing and able to put the time into researching as you did.
:)

[Kissa]

I've been interested in exactly where people get their info, in the UK at least, I've yet to find a single scientific paper on hamster nutrition but I'm still searching :)

They are out there, as I have found some. I didn't bookmark or save any of them, though, and I haven't the access to scientific journal sites like I did when I was at uni any more :rolleyes: Google Scholar and sciencedirect.com were the two sites I used to find any and all papers I've read, though, if that helps :)

I think it's great that people are thinking about making their own mixes and that these threads pop up once in awhile. I'm not sure what's the etiquette on this forum in giving specific recipes, but I honestly feel that the hardness of making your own mix is a bit overblown and know that making your own mix can be done as long as you have done proper research and is confident in your critical thinking and analyzation ability.

I believe this is how Silver started with her mixes, and while it sounds logical, if I recall correctly they weren't at the percentages she wanted at all. Not sure why, I'm a chemist not a nutritionist :lol: It does concern me, though, as at some point, when I have cats again, I want to feed them a raw meat diet, and while there are many more recipes out there for cats than for hamsters, I am unsure of their... nutritional soundness, as it were, because like RH pointed out, how many people can get their foods actually analysed properly? (Oh my, that sentence was long! :lol:)

I have seriously considered pulling the hamster mix's off RR. And I will if I continue to feel this way.

So for my own sanity & health this will be my last comment on any food related thread.

I am off to enjoy this forum again & look at all the lovely hams & what they have been up to as this is why I joined HC in the first place.

Silver xxx

I don't know if you'll read this, but thank you for deciding to not take them off RR. There are two hams here who would be devastated to have their delicious food taken from them :)

[kyrilliondaemon]

I have seriously considered pulling the hamster mix's off RR. And I will if I continue to feel this way.

Er... You know that if you take the mixes off RR you'll just get to see loads of us struggling to find a good mix for our hams again right?
I know you're ill but I really hope you don't remove the mixes from the site. Stop answering questions - fine. But removing them would mean problems for a heck of a lot of us when we had to convince our pets to eat something they didn't like as much.

[Biscotti]

Hm... I hope I didn't came off wrong and offend people, that is not my intent. It's just I've seen quite a few threads asking about this lately and I'd like to bring a different perspective and clarify fact vs conjecture as I feel they tend to be blurred, and also encourage people to do their research by letting them know that making a mix is not impossible. This is in no way trying to take away what others have already done.

[racinghamster]

I don`t think you did Biscotti. What you asked was what many people do and probably always will. It wasn`t aimed at any individual mix, it was a universal question that we all want to discuss and divulge. Nothing wrong with that. :)