Homemade Mixes

From Apology72 in My Degu-Nutricion without finished products Aug 19, 2011, 1:03pm

Monday, Wednesday, Friday

Mallow, plantain, birch, green oats, willow leaves, chickweed, calendula petals, rose petals, rice, puffed


TUESDAY, THURSDAY, SATURDAY

Plantain, dandelion, nettle, lady's mantle, hawthorn, sunflower petals, rose petals, parsley root


Sunday MIXTURE
JR-field herbs, echinacea (coneflower), sage, parsley, hops flowers, chamomile flowers, hazelnuts, wild chicory, mallow


Daily seed mix
White millet, amaranth, grass seeds, quinoa

All components of this mixture can be fed unlimited daily.

FOREST BIRD MIXTURE
Canary seed, rape, colza / red, Fichtensaat, black seed, hemp seed, linseed, Perillasaat, oats, red millet, white millet, millet, Japanese millet, buckwheat, Gras-/Unkrautsaat, chicory. (red => oilseed)


The forest bird mixture is fed only every 2-3 days from us, because of the contained oilseeds. I dont want our boys became too thick

Our Degus dont like fresh vergetable, so the
VEGETABLES MIXED
Eggplant, zucchini, squash, celery, tomato flakes


If I find the time and the weather will allow, some freshly greens picked outside and expand our menu.

TIP: Our guys are weighed every 14 days. The weights are documented in a table. Rapid weight loss can sometimes be a sign that one degu is sick. A weight chart can sometimes be useful to detect disease earlier.

from davx in My Degu-Nutricion without finished products Oct 2, 2011, 6:54pm

My winter food is also quite similar. I present you the mix from last winter (the text is from last winter, I translated it only and adapted it slightly):

Seeds, nuts & Co.
I'll start with the favourite food of my degus, the seeds.

Seed mixture (self created mixture consisting of bought seeds)
- paddy / rough rice *
- Mung beans*
- canary grass seeds*
- niger seed / ramtil*
- turnip rape seeds*
- spinach seeds*
- quinoa
- rosehip seeds
- various millet seeds
- sesame
(- grass seeds)
(- hemp seeds Hanfsamen)
- sunflower seeds (self collected)
- beech nuts (self collected)

* ingredients labelled with a star I use in large quantities and are an important part of my mixture.
() ingredients in brackets are only contained in small quantities.

The mixture consists of different ingredients, I always mix in a new composition, when I buy new seeds. In the mixture listed above I used a germination seed mixture for forest birds (contains mainly oil seeds) and a wild seed mixture as base. I added then left overs from previous mixtures, pure seeds for birds (paddy, canary grass seeds), but also pseudo grains like quinoa (grocery stuff).

Nuts & Co. (self collectet)
- walnuts
- hazelnuts
- rose of Sharon seedcases
- acorn
- beech nuts
- pumpkin seeds

Dried fruits (self collected)
- hawthorn berries
- barberries, in small quantities

Herbs, flowers & Co.

flower mixture
- rose of Sharon
- calendula
- rose flowers Rosenblüten
- sunflower flower leaves Sonnenblumen-Blütenblätter
- red clover
- common chicory
- mullein
- peppermint (inflorescences)
- annual fleabane
- various mallows (Malva species)

Herbal and shrub mixture (self collected)
- hazel leaves*
- rose of Sharon leaves*
- raspberry leaves*
- hawthorn leaves
- hop
- greater plantain
- blackberry leaves
- wild strawberry foliage

* ingredients labelled with a star are main ingredients of the mixture


commercial tea mixture "Nieren- und Blasenbeschwerde" (bought)
A mixture from the pharmacy called "Nieren- und Blasenbeschwerde" (kidney and bladder suffering). The best before date was 1/2009 but the herbs smelled well.
- birch leaves
- hawthorn
- rosehips
- cat's-whiskers (Orthosiphon)
- nettle


Feeding
The feeding is quite simple. Ingredients from the category "seeds, nuts & Co." I feed almost daily, occasionally also as titbits from my hands. The seed mixtures I offer 2-3 times per week, but depending on the hunger of my degus and how well they feed their diet, I adapt the quantity and frequency of feeding. Mostly I make three piles on three different places in the cage. The degus can choice one of the piles and each degu has its own pile. Sometimes I offer nuts (with shell) while I create the seed piles. It distract the degus from the seeds and avoids a bit fights for food. That works fine. Hawthorn berries are a favourite titbit I offer sometimes with the regular mixture, sometimes I lay them in the cage. I offer them only in smaller quantities, because the degus ignore them, when they have eaten some berries and I offered to large quantities.

Items from the category "herbs, flowers & co." I feed less regular, mostly 1 times per week and give a palm sized quantity of flower, and also smaller quantities from my shrub- and herbmixture and from the commercial tea mixture.

About 2-3 times per week I feed also green stuff (fresh herbs etc.). Actually we have snow [remark: when I wrote this text, it was winter! ;D] and I can only offer spider plant (is much liked) and Callisia (they also eat it). In addition I offer some herbs, growing indoors like sage (often) or parsley (seldom). When the snow disapears, I will collect grasses outdoors, blackberry leaves and some few herbs I can find during the winter.

In the cage I have a certain offer of branchens and twigs with dried leaves or without leaves and spruce tiwgs. The degus feed on them occasionally. In addition I give hay and grass which I harvest during the winter, partly fresh, partly dried.

Photos
hawthorn berries


from left to right: rose of Sharon seedcases, acorns, walnuts


leaves and herbs mixture


flower mixture


tea mixture


seed mixture

NightwishRaven999 in The 50% natural nutrition project P2 Sept 9, 2011, 4:49am

In the Blog Section of the forum, I have made several posts about my varying levels of success at drying different herbs and veggetables. With the weather cooling down quickly and dropping below 10C at night, outdoor drying is not longer effective. I have started drying herbs in brown paper bags and have found this technique to work even better !

After arriving home from work today, I have found all the herbs to be dried and everything ready to be mixed.

As Fred stated, this project aims for a 50% natural diet, so I realise this mix is far from complete and may be lacking variety.
My degus have been eating herbs and flowers for a long time, but not in large amounts (certainly nothing close to 50% of diet) !

The mix I have created should last me about two weeks.
After seeing the incredible mix Fred has created, I have a few ideas on how to improve my next mixture.

As this is not a complete diet, the mix is backed up by the usual Versele-Laga pellet feeds and an unlimited amount of timothy hay.

Here is my first attempt at creating a natural mixture for my degus.










Mixture Ingredients

- Dandelion leaves and stems
- Sage leaves and stems
- Basil leaves and stems
- Savory leaves and stems
- Mint herb leaves and stems
- Common Parsley leaves
- Flat-leaf (Italian) Parsley leaves
- Aubergine
- Zucchini
- White Millet clusters
- Red Millet clusters
- Wheat Germs
- Rolled Oats
- Quinoa seeds
- Pumpkin seeds*
- Dehydrated Carrot slices*
- Dried Green Peas
- Chopped Timothy Hay
- Chamomile flowers*
- Calendula flowers
- Raspberry leaves*
- Peppermint leaves*

* small amount


Will be posting about the mix in my Journal/Blog as well.
I am open to advice and/or suggestions !

Jordan

From Fred The 50% natural nutrition project P2 Sept 10, 2011, 11:08pm

I was in a large garden centre today and got some more ingredients for my mixes. For the seed mix I bought two bags of bird food, ChapelWood Finest Finch Food - yellow millet, panicum millet, canary seed, red millet, naked oats, linseeed, niger seed and other small seeds (left), and ChapelWood Finest Sparrow Food - black sunflower, wheat, yellow millet, maize grits, red millet, red dari, naked oats and other small seeds (right). The latter contains more oilseeds, so I am currently mixing these 2:1 (bottom), but can adjust if weight changes require it.

From Fred in The 50% natural nutrition project p5 Sept 27, 2011, 1:18pm

My second dried plants mix

I recently bought a bag of Rosewood Naturals Nature's Salad (shown in a previous post). Because it contains some flakes and cereals, I 'diluted' it with a bag of Burns Meadow Mix for Rabbits which is much more frugal. This is what the resulting mix looks like



It contains alfalfa, birch tree leaf, chamomile, cornflowers, dandelion, edible leaves, marigold, melissa, nettle, plantain, parsley, peppermint, red clover, rose petals, carrots, red beet, wheat, willow bark. It also contains oat flakes, wheat flakes, pea flakes, burst wheat, burst maize, maize flakes, which aren't necessarily a recommended part of degu food but are such minor contribution to this mix that they don't matter.


My girls really like it, at least as much as the first one.




I have now made two dried plant and one seed mix out of six bags bought locally. The total cost was £ 16 and what I have got will last me quite a long time. I will of course add some more tasty bits like those Kat has found, but as a starting point this is all I needed. Since my two girl also eat a lot of fresh stuff, we are happily at the 100% level now ;D

From NightwishRaven999 in The 50% natural nutrition project p8 Oct 16, 2011, 1:55am

Completed another mix...this one I am proud of.
Fred's recent vegetable mix has inspired me to try different things and add more variety in my upcoming food mixes.

After having collected and dried various plants and flowers over the week, I have assembled a much more complete mix than the one assembled in september.

This mix consists of: Dandelion leaves and stems, Dandelion roots, Dandelion flowers, Plantain leaves, stems and seedlings, Field Grasses, Luzerne, Red Clover, Strawberry leaves, Blackberry leaves, Mint herbs, Rosemary, Basil, Thyme, Marjoram, dehydrated Tomatoes, dehydrated Aubergine, dehydrated Carrots, Broadleaf Parsley, Celery leaves, Yellow Daisies, Sage, Millet clusters, Birch tree leaves and Savory.






This is their Versele-Laga Degu Nature feed (containing Jerusalem Artichoke, Parsips, Marigolds, Herbs, Carrots, Linseeds...etc) mixed with various grains and seeds (Oats, White Millet, Red Millet, Fennel Seeds, Sesame Seeds, Pumpkin Seeds, Pearl Barley, Yellow Peas, Wheat Germs, Flax Seeds and Quinoa.)

From Mel in The 50% natural nutrition project p9 Oct 31, 2011, 4:22pm

Here are some photos of my new mix and the goos love it. It contains millet, oats, dandelions leaves and flowers, parsley, rosemary, thyme, basil, chives, rose hips (only a few), mint, chamomile, milk thistle, mallow flowers, sage, hibiscus, fennel seeds, rose and sunflower petals.

From NightwishRaven999 in The 50% natural nutrition project p11 Nov 16, 2011, 9:46am

It is very late for me at the moment, so I will keep this brief.
I spent some time at the natural produce market this evening and brought home a selection of fruits and vegetables for the degus. I have many herbs and lots of dried plants and flowers left, but was looking specifically for vegetables today.

After seeing photos of Apology's dried cube-shaped cut vegetable selection, I wanted to try something out.

For this small vegetable mix, I will be using Red Pepper, Yellow Pepper and Orange Pepper, Carrots, Parnips, Celery, Courgette and Italian Tomatoes.

I have cut all of these into thin slices and cube shaped pieces.
I am hoping they all turn out well. I will be posting about my success/failures with this in the Blog section of the forum.

For now, here are a few photos of my latest degu diet-related adventure.

From Fred The 50% natural nutrition project p13 Mar 1, 2012, 10:39pm

Another example of what can easily be resourced from markets or supermarkets. A 150g pack “Italian style salad” on offer for 70 pence. It contained lollo rosso, red batavia, apollo, baby leaf spinach, endive, and lambs lettuce.





This was quite visibly enjoyed by my girls