Should I go easy on the veggies?

[Chesterspal]

Besides the Higgins dry food mix to which I add much more seeds and things... I give my hamster some organic lettuce, maybe some carrot shreds, some broccoli, a few almond, hazel or pecan nuts, maybe a raisin or two, some dried meal worms, a bit of aged cheddar cheese.

I will mix it up each night but this is the basic concept.

Most all of which he will make disappear each evening.

However, not much of that dried mix seems to be touched and I'm wondering if I need to stop or cut way back on the additional items he seems to prefer?

Is he still getting what he need nutrition-wise?

Thanks

[Stanza]

Hi Chesterspal, I’m interested in the answer to this too. I feed mostly just dry mix each day with 2 veggies or 1 veg/1fruit. I do have some millet sprays in the cage now which Hams nibbles on.

The portions I offer are pretty tiny.

Very small pieces of brocolli and a piece of thin sliced carrot which is a bit smaller than my thumbnail I guess, I cut it into 4 tiny quarters.
Or
the carrot bits with 2 tiny bits of cucumber or 2 tiny bits of apple.

I’ve been a bit worried to give too much fresh food? My hamster scoops up all the fresh food first. It’s nice as he’ll often eat it in front of me, so I get to give him a nice stroke. He then pouches all the dry food after and takes it to his store, I’ve no idea really as to how much dry food he’s actually eating?

Your selection sounds very varied, so I would think he’s getting a good mix nutritionally. Does your hamster leave the dry food in his bowl? Maybe he’s just taking the bits he likes from the dry selection.

[sushi_78]

I think one or two pieces of veg (or fruit for a treat) a day is plenty. A piece being approximately 1cm cubed or for leafy veg around 5cm in diameter (no need to actually measure it out of course, but these are approximate portion sizes).

Nuts in particular are easy to overdo as they're very fatty. I wouldn't feed a whole nut every day. You could break them into smaller pieces, and likewise the raisins. I usually tear raisins into smaller pieces because they're quite high in sugar (although I don't feed them to my Russian dwarfs at all as they're a diabetes-prone species and they really don't need the concentrated sugar). Because raisins are dried fruits, hamsters can eat many more of them than they should. A hamster would struggle to eat a whole grape and yet could easily eat several raisins!

[Chesterspal]

Originally Posted by sushi_78

I think one or two pieces of veg (or fruit for a treat) a day is plenty...

I agree. Think I'm overdoing it. Will trim back as suggested.

He won't starve : )

Now, If I could only get hold of him, I'd like to get a new weight.