so diet is one of the most important parts of having a happy healthy hamster
so that's why it's important to have a high quality and high variety
hamster food for your hamster a lot of people think you can just walk into the
pet store pick the cheapest seed mix and then feed it to your hamster and that's
it but a hamsters diet is a little bit more complicated than that
hamster diets can be pretty confusing because there is not one sole hamster
mix sold in the pet store that is going to meet all of a hamsters nutritional
needs oftentimes hamster owners are going to have to mix more than one mix
together to get the proper amounts that a hamster needs so here are a couple of
things that you should know about hamsters, hamsters are omnivores they've
been found in the wild to eat a lot of different insects as well as they've
even been found to eat other small mammals hamsters are not herbivores like
a lot of people think if they're just fed a herbivore diet they will slowly
die from malnutrition. Pellets and things like the Oxbow brand which I love the
Oxbow brand for any other species of animal just not for hamsters because the
main part of that mix is hay which hamsters don't need in their diet. Seeds
are good for hamsters there's a lot of myths that surround seeds a lot of
people think that seeds are like candy to hamsters they really aren't seeds
provide a lot of variety for your hamster as well as seeds are actually
fairly low in fat and sugar so it's not really like candy if you take a look at
something like barley it actually has quite low fat and low sugar content per
100 grams so because of that myth a lot of people just feed their hamsters
pellets as well as a lot of people will recommend feeding pellets so that their
hamster can't become a picky eater but this then gives your hamster a lack of
variety which is really important in their diet
that's like if you were only to eat crackers the rest of your life you would
be very bored of that and it would not be very fun to eat the
same thing over and over so variety is really important there's a lot of
different ways that you can get around with not having your hamster become a
picky eater such as you can not refill the dish until everything has been eaten
from the dish or you can try to find a seed mix that doesn't just contain a ton
of junk foods try to find one that has a less amount of those fattier foods in it
so when it comes to picking a good hamster mix you're going to want to try
to find something with 17 to 19 percent protein 4 to 7 percent fat and 6 to 15
percent fiber you're also going to want to pick something with a lot of variety
now you're probably not going to find a sole mix in the pet store that is going
to meet all of those requirements you're most likely going to have to end up
mixing a couple of different mixes now what I recommend is because a lot of
seed mixes generally have very low protein content I recommend taking a
high variety seed mix and I recommend mixing that with a high protein block
diet. When you are mixing different hamster foods together you really need
to be careful you can't just like mix three different mixes together you kind
of need to calculate it out because you can actually really mess up the overall
nutritional value of it and you don't want something that's too high in fat
or too high in protein or too low in protein so you're gonna want to make
sure you're going to be calculating it right I will leave a really great
calculator that was made by one of the members on the hamster haidle forum so
that you can figure out how much of each mix to combined together as of right now
the most recommended mix on the market would be to take 50% of the Higgins
Sunburst and 50% of the Mazuri rat and mouse pellets and mix that together
I myself have actually researched quite a bit into homemade hamster diets and
decided to create my own mix as well as mix in a little bit of commercial
hamster seed mix I don't talk about it a lot on my channel because
it is important if someone wants to make their own homemade hamster diet they do
their own research and they learn how to properly calculate all of the
nutritional values of each food it also can be a very expensive process so if
you're on a low budget you probably don't want to be making your own
homemade food if you're still interested in making a homemade diet I will leave a
good link that talks all about it I myself have personally chosen to
create my own hamster seed mix because there is no other mix on the market that
looks like mine I can provide as much variety as I want I get to choose and
select which seeds which different types of foods I put in there as well as I can
make the variety lots, I also know where each food is coming from because I'm
purchasing it myself to put into my mix making my own hamster food doesn't
necessarily mean that it's better than a store-bought food it is something that
I'm always improving my mix isn't 100% perfect but it is something that you
always are going to be improving and changing along with your hamsters
regular daily mix you also want to include fruits vegetables and other
extras these are really important because they have a lot of good
nutrients and minerals for your hamster vegetables are super healthy a lot of
people seem to be against feeding them every single day because they say
they're going to get diarrhea and they could die which they won't there is a
certain way you can go about giving your hamster extra foods like fruits and
vegetables and you shouldn't just give them an entire carrot stick that of
course would give your hamster an upset stomach but if you're slowly introducing
a new food to them every time and you slowly increase the amount, your hamster
won't get an upset stomach I also have a video that talks about safe and unsafe
extra foods to feed your hamster so I will leave that link in the iCard above
right here and the last thing I want to talk about is herb's
this is something that not a lot of hamster owners in Canada or in America
really include into their hamsters diet because it might not be as available to
us as it is other countries but herbs are really great they have a lot
of good minerals as well as good properties to them for example the herb
echinacea helps strengthen the immune system, dill can actually help with an
upset stomach and chamomile can actually help with indigestion as well as any
respiratory diseases so because herbs don't contain a ton of fats and sugars
there's not really a limit on how much you can give I myself personally
sprinkle a bunch in the cage once a week but you could probably go get away with
giving a little bit more one. last thing that I want to touch on is extra mineral
drops or mineral chews that you can get at the pet store that you drop into your
hamsters water or you feed them to them these are not necessary and they don't
always help your hamster your hamster should be getting all of the nutrients
and minerals from their daily diet so these really just aren't necessary so I
really really hope this video could help anybody who is confused on hamster diets
because I know it can be such a confusing topic and make sure you check
out the description bar because I'm going to leave a bunch of links about
things that I talked about in today's video so yeah guys thank you for
watching bye