Would Anyone Be Interested?

[racinghamster]

Sounds good Silver. can I ask please, will you be doing small `tester` bags for sale for people to try? Say 50g/100gram bags?

And will you be allowing a list of ingredients on the bags? So we know what our hamsters are actually eating? Or is that going to be a trade secret! You could go onto Dragon`s Den and make a pitch for your patented hamster mix!!!

[Silver]

Originally Posted by racinghamster

Sounds good Silver. can I ask please, will you be doing small `tester` bags for sale for people to try? Say 50g/100gram bags?

And will you be allowing a list of ingredients on the bags? So we know what our hamsters are actually eating? Or is that going to be a trade secret! You could go onto Dragon`s Den and make a pitch for your patented hamster mix!!!

MMMM Dragons Den hey.....

Im afraid the smallest bag size will be 500g. The reason behind this is because the ingrediants are so finely measured out some ingredients wouldn't be there in 50g or 100g bags

The ingredients will be listed on the website, just not how much of each ingredient .

[Noodle]

Maybe you could sell them on ebay, and spread the word around on here? I'm sure you'd build good reputation, and once you have more websites would be interested.

[LawaRawr]

sell the mix to friends and family to get the word around then try selling some on ebay and post a link on the forum so members can buy some x

[racinghamster]

Hmmmm....sounds like you need some business advice on this Silver. It certainly is`nt fair that you are providing the need but they are keeping the profits? I don`t know how these things work to be honest but maybe they are willing to see how the product sells before they take it into a bigger marketplace? Companies won`t spend good money on new products unless it already has sound feedback, but obviously with a pet food, it has to be trialed for a while to see how it sells and whether it keeps selling because it proves popular. Marketing something like this would cost a small fortune and maybe this is why they just want to take baby steps to see how the product sells?

It`s a shame more companies won`t believe in new ideas and get them out there into the marketplace because competition is definately needed in the small animal food trade. When you look at what`s already available, it`s not exactly brilliant unless you like corn and alfalfa...

[KatiePillow]

Tbh, if you could get some breeders on board then you could end up with a large market, some people buy 15kg at a time, so that's only 66 orders...D: the issue is that they'd need taster sizes first and it could be a large gamble.
tbh, if I wasn't going to make any profit from it, I'd just publish the recipe, but If I bought this I'd want the money to go to you. You put all the leg work in, and I don't think the website should get all the profit...

[Silver]

Ok,

Ive had the list back for the Protein, Fat & Fiber.

It's not quiet right yet so need some more tweeking. Sorry it's taking so long but it needs to be right.

[Silver]

Well I have decided to give the pet food website my mix's without recieving any money from the sale of them.

I have decided that I would prefer that there was a good natural food for Dwarf's to buy rather than me waiting longer to find wholesalers & setting up & selling them.

We are just getting the fibre levels up with research on what different seeds & grains that have high fibre, it's actually interesting & is much much better having a few different types of fibre than one pellet that they wont eat.

This has all been done without the help of any breeders.

The pet food website has also recieved a All Hamster mix. I don't know what the ingredients are but believe it to be along the same lines of a natural mix. So for all you Syrian owners there will also be a mix to try.

Hopefully the mix's there are three will be done in the next couple of weeks then I will trial them on my three ginea pigs....cough....dwarfs .

So I guess watch this space

[Silver]

Well it's now September

Just had the last batch of mix no1 & in this mix I have been trying to find something that is high in fibre that they will eat.

For this I have tried the following:

Bran Sticks
Fennel Seed
Bulgher Wheat.

The mix arrived yesterday & my three have made there feelings known how they feel about them.

Bran sticks are a massive hit . I honestly thought that would be the one they wouldn't like but they love them. They get pouched straight away .

Fennel seed's they won't touch at all oh no we don't like Fennel seed's mummy .

Bulgher Wheat they love it, it's one of the things they pick out of the food dish to munch on there & then instead of pouching them. They are small bits so perfect for the little one's mouths. And what's also good about them is that they are high in fibre & Protein & low in fat so brilliant to add to any hamster mix. Really pleased about that one.

Sooo as I now have to omit the Fennel seed's & bump up the Bran sticks & bulgher Wheat it will take some more time for me to get this mix analysed.

As you can probably tell I will not let anything be put on sale until I get the fat's, fibre & Protein correct.

I think now this one mix alone has 20 different ingredients & all of them are natural. with no corn, Alfifa, or peas as this mix will be the one for all dwarf hamsters, even the diabetes prone ones.

Once this one is sorted which I hope will be soon then I have another two mix's which are for non diabetes prone hamsters because one will have added peas & the other one will have added dog kibble. The reason why the dog kibble isn't being put into the all dwarf hamster mix is because it have a tiny amount of pea so didn't want to risk putting it into the all dwarf hamster mix in case this causes a problem for the diabetic hamsters though im sure im being over protective probabley there as there is not much pea at all.

It's been a long long time since I started doing these mix's, & I just want to thank everyone who is still even reading this thread & who would like to buy the mix's once on the pet forum.

Thank You Silver xxx

[Kezziah]

Are you doing species specific mixes? As in...will this be good for my sugar intolerant Chinese monkeys?

Would be very interested in this if so!!