What to feed my dwarf campbell's?

KennyDolly · 04-02-2011, 07:02 PM

I've got a little female dwarf campbell's, and I absolutely ADORE her! Since the breed is prone to diabetes, I feed her Hazel Hamster food (Harry Hamster) with the corn and peas picked out. I also feed Oxbow Healthy Handfuls, with a teaspoon of plain parakeet seed about every 4 days. I add some lentils in for variety. Now for treats, because many have sugar, would it be okay for me to feed her 1 sunflower seed a day? They are her FAVORITE along with pumpkin seeds and I love to see her happy but want her to be healthy. Also, what are some other treats that I could give her? Thanks!

**Hope** · 04-03-2011, 01:31 AM

What you are feeding her sounds fine, although I dont pick the corn and pea flakes out of my mix, the sugar in them is naturally occouring, if you hamster were to develop diabeties it is one of the things that you would need to do though.

Sunflower seeds are fine, they are quite fatty, but one or two a day will do no harm at all. Other treats I feed are dried mealworms they absoulutely adore them, I havent heard of a dwarf that doesnt so I would recommend giving them a go! There again are fatty and high in protein so such one a day or a few every few days. Millet is fab too and very healthy. Vegetables such as a little carrot or cucuber alos goes down well

Welcome to the forum

racinghamster · 04-05-2011, 05:37 AM

I hav`nt kept a dwarf hammie for a few years now, but I had a hybrid Russian male from recsue. Basically, what I would do if I had a species that was known to be prone to diabetes, would be to take early precautions and do the following:

1. Read the labels of all the hamster mixes and find out which ones (if any) were sprayed with molasses or fruit spray). These are usually added for taste. If in doubt, e-mail the company and ask.

2. Pick out anything that may have natural sugars like corn/maize and dried carrot/banana often found in commercial mixes.

By removing these few things, you can `add-back` other ingredients to make up for that. Things like Buckwheat, millet, Hemp seeds etc...all found in most supermarkets or health food stores.

Edited to add: I have kept degus before and because they are also prone to diabetes, it`s a good idea to check everything you feed them and choose only natural grains and seeds with nothing added.

CoolcatNatNat44 · 04-05-2011, 06:53 AM

Pets at home sell a special dwarf hamster brand, i cant remember what its called but its on their website

and its good for diabetic hamsters

anorak · 04-05-2011, 07:17 AM

Never seen the dwarf food mix before! I have swapped Noodles onto Harry Hamster, but there is loads she does not like in there (the big brown pellets, red biscuits and green biscuits). Wonder if it would be a good idea to introduce this?

racinghamster · 04-05-2011, 07:29 AM

I`m not too clued up on hamster mixes right now but I keep mice these days and because they love grains and seeds, we in the mousie world like to mix our own food a lot of the time, but still rely on a commercial `base` mix and them add to this things like organic puffed rice, millet/canary seeds, Hemp seed, Buckwheat (not from wheat by the way) and a number of other things. It can vary greatly to be honest.

With hamsters, you have another species, so it`s always a good idea to look at the commercial mix and look at everything (ingredients) in it that is listed. Some things will be self explanatory like barley, wheat, corn etc.... but the extruded biscuits for example could be meat meal/chicken/turkey meal, and these can also be highly coloured with `EC permitted colourings`...but they don`t say what these colourings are?

I once e-mailed Burgess and asked them if the colourings in these extruded biscuits were natural or man-made and I never did receive a reply, so my answer to that was to take the brightly coloured biscuits out of the mix. The mix in question was one of their Rabbit mixes. I use this as a base for my mice because of all the small grains it contains, but you would`nt use this for hamsters as it contains whole oats (jagged edges).

So on the whole, having a wider variety than just what is contained within a commercial mix makes good sense really. Just make sure anything you do add is fully researched and safe for hamsters to consume.