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Post by malteser60 on Sept 11, 2011 14:46:37 GMT
Personally, whilst I think that if you feed them more grasses, then the timothy or meadow hay consumption will decrease, however I do not feel that hay should be removed as a stable food.
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Post by davx on Sept 11, 2011 14:56:53 GMT
But hay is sometimes a problem as source of allergic reactions. Not only grass, but also pasture herbs wild herbs etc. can replace it. A good reason to use hay is the price and the fact, that it is also used as nesting material or simply as substrate/bedding. Also when fresh food is restricted hay can serve as reserve.
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Post by moletteuk on Sept 11, 2011 15:31:04 GMT
Butternut squash is just a type of squash, there are loads of types, it just happens that hardly any are grown commercially, pumpkin is a type of squash too, and marrow is a cucurbit, which is the same family as squashes. I think marrow would be OK as it's very similar to courgette, but I would avoid squashes and pumpkins, as they have quite high sugar content.
It's possible to buy buckwheat cheaply in bags in the supermarket in the UK, and you can also buy packets of dried peppers, they are usually near the stock cubes in the plain ingredients section.
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Post by Maravilla on Sept 11, 2011 16:08:52 GMT
@ malteser60, it's not a question of removing hay as stable food. In another thread I've already said that my degus had about 2kg of it in the cages. But they eat only small amounts. It is really good hay and the have it ad libitum. Nevertheless, I don't think that it's more than 5% of their daily diet.
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Post by fred on Sept 11, 2011 19:29:59 GMT
Some thoughts on hay.
In the discussion of how much hay degus need / should be fed, we need to remember that in the English-speaking degu community, degu diet is very much influenced by Degutopia's regrettable diet and feeding guide. When other natural nutrition is is restricted to the occasional “treat”, if not forbidden altogether, hay becomes of course a very important part of the diet.
I have re-read some information about hay on several German degu information sites and there are some differences just much emphasis is put on hay. To me it seems that as long as hay is part of a balanced, largely natural diet, its relatively contribution can probably vary of a wide range without any ill effects.
Also, how do we quantify how much hay our degus eat? Based on volume, weight, fibre content, or energy content?
From my limited personal experience, I find it interesting that the amount of hay my girls eat does not seem to have changed and remained high in spite of rather dramatic changes to their diet, from hay + P@H nuggets + few fresh material and treats, over hay + a little XtraVital Degu + fresh greens in large amounts, to hay + fresh greens + natural nutrition mixes.
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Post by NightwishRaven999 on Sept 12, 2011 2:53:32 GMT
Those look so good! I'm finding it really hard not to be envious of the range of products you have in the UK and Europe. Same here Faith ! Fred those mixes look incredible I would pay dearly to get my hands on such products ! Thank you for posting the ingredients. I will be making an effort to try and spot as many of these as possible. David, about the hay sometimes being a problem as far as allergic reactions or respiratory illness, this is very true. Hay is often very high in dust. Luckily though, many brands offer hay and bedding that are relatively low in dust (dust extracted). I like that you mention hay as being useful for many things. Those of us who have limited access to natural feeds, must rely on Timothy, Meadow or Oat hay. As you mention, hay is cheap...it is great to use in bulk as nesting/burrowing material.
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Post by aya0aya on Sept 12, 2011 6:50:18 GMT
I don't have pics, but here's what I did: I bought a mix of herbs (translated with google translate, I hope it's right: plantain, thyme, nettle, ladies mantle, peppermint, blackberry leaves, red clover). I bought extra bags of chamomile flowers and rose hips, this mix of herbs for immunity aro.si/trgovina/detail/310-poslastice/flypage/3317-versele-laga-nature-herbs-immunity-za-odpornost-60g?sef=hcfp (herbal hay mixture with primrose and echinacea), a bag of dried carrots, peas and small green pumpkins). Then mixed all together with regular mix of pellets and ready food I always feed them (Science selective degu from Supreme foods, Degu care+ by Beaphar and Versele Laga Degu nature) I provided two watter bottles, one with vitamin fluid and one without, they can always have dandelion, hazelnut branches, apple branches, blueberry leaves and similar greens found in nature. They have three kinds of hay mixture; Vitaverde alpine hay, oat hay from oxbow and timothy hay by Living world. I'm saving my handpicked and dried in a shadow hay for the winter. Occasionally they get fresh jerusalem artichoke - they love flowers the most, simple rewards timothy treats by Oxbow, porridge oats, I try to provide them fresh vegetables, but they're never eaten and maybe something else that I forget. I just realize I'm feeding them that way for a while, I didn't know I started it by myself. What do you think?
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Post by Kins on Sept 12, 2011 8:26:31 GMT
I am seriously considering starting a more natural diet with my goos.
I do have one main concern though. I tried them on XtraVital degu food a while back and found that they were selective feeding which made me worry that they wouldn't get a balanced diet of everything they needed as they would just pick out their favorite bits.
I fear that if I give them a 50% 'natural' diet with 50% nuggets they just won't eat the nuggets.
What are others experiences with this?
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Post by Maravilla on Sept 12, 2011 8:43:30 GMT
Hello kins, my degus don't get any nuggets but I don't consider them as mal nourished. Wild degus don't have access to nuggets either. Food industry often says that food selecting is bad and that feeding nuggets avoids this. But why is this bad? Why should a degu eat every day at any moment the same things?
Just start to mix their nuggets with other ingredients - Fred gave some very nice examples of all the possible things (leaves, flowers, herbs, seeds) - and let your degus decide what they want to eat. You will see that they don't eat every day the same. One day they will go crazy for dandelion, the next day buckhorn is much more interesting, the third there is nothing better that hazelnut leaves. Just trust in your degus. They are so clever!! It's important to provide a variety of different things so that they can chose. My flower-mix has about 10-15 different ingredients, the same with the leaves and seeds mix... these contain different minerals, vitamins etc.
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Post by Kins on Sept 12, 2011 9:10:20 GMT
Well, I hope you will be pleased to know I have just ordered some excel natural packs of food, am looking at some seed mixes and plan to try and dry some of my own vegetables over the weekend. A few more questions I'm afraid... What sort of quantities should I be feeding of natural herb type mixes, seeds and dried vegetables? One of my goos is quite a large chap, not overweight by any means, in my opinion, but last time I weighed him he was 292g. I am cocerned he may put more weight on, and become overweight, especially with a tasty more natural diet. Do you think this would be an issue? Also what vegetables would you suggest for a good 'mix ' to start of my drying plans? Thank you. I feel like I am learning so much, this is great! I hope my gooeys will appreciate my extra effort
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Post by fred on Sept 12, 2011 9:23:35 GMT
Kins – to be honest, I have difficulties seeing your goos going for half natural mix and half P@H nuggets. Irrespective of what is in them, the nuggets do not seem very attractive to many degus. We have heard quite a few stories here of degus refusing them. On deguforum.de, maravilla and apology are not the only ones with their own mixes but one can find many different versions. I haven't seen questions that these are not balanced enough or that the degus are missing out on certain vitamins, minerals and trace elements. However, there also deguforum.de members who give hard feeds in addition to their natural mixes. As far as I can see, the JR Farm products are the most used. JR Farm Degu Extra Light seems the best of them but is not (yet) available from zooplus.co.uk but Degu Premium and Degu Special are. If you see that your goos stop eating their nuggets, you could always replace them with one of the JR Farm feeds.
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Post by fred on Sept 12, 2011 9:52:35 GMT
Kins – I am sure your goos will appreciate this very much I feed the natural mixes ad libitum and fill up their bowl once a day. Within a few days you get a feeling how much they eat, and I don't believe they will overeat from their dried plant mixes. Regarding your larger chap, you may have to keep oilseeds at a low level. Perhaps it would be good to leave them out at the beginning and sneak them to the others as treats. I have only started with drying veggies and so far courgettes, aubergine and beetroot (to be fed only in smaller amounts) have worked very well.
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Post by Maravilla on Sept 12, 2011 10:27:46 GMT
When I got my degus about 2 years ago, I first continued the nutrition the degus had known. This was: JR Farm Degu Spezial mixed with marigold, roses, peppermint, green oak, green spelt, dandelion, buckhorn, blackberry and raspberry leaves, nettle and some seeds. This worked fine at the beginning, but wasn't okay for me after a couple of weeks. The seeds were so small they always slipped to the bottom of the bucket. Besides, the Degu Spezial contains quite a lot of cereals and other things I preferred to give as titbits (e.g. pea flakes, carrots and maize). After half a year or so I started to reduce the Degu Spezial and mixed more natural ingredients. Now, after different attempts, I have three mixtures: leaves, flowers and seeds. Kins, you are worried about your degus becoming a little bit heavier. I wouldn't be to worried about this. Have you ever checked what e.g. XtraVital Degu contains? It's lots of grains, alfalfa, soy and a couple of other things. Grains and alfalfa contain a lot of energy, alfalfa is even considered to be fattening feed. Other nuggets contain different types of added fats and oils. These are not contained in a natural diet. I offer about one hand of the leaves mixture per group, this lasts for about 2-3 days. Besides, I fill the bowls of flower mix when they are almost empty. When they are used to it, they won't eat too much at once. When you put the food in different sites of the cage, they even have to look for it and will be entertained as well. Just start with the new diet, it isn't that difficult. You and your degus are not alone in the process of reforming their diet .
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Post by fred on Sept 12, 2011 12:29:44 GMT
aya0aya – This is an amazing variety Funny to think just how much natural nutrition your goos already have in their diet without you noticing it ;D I think that, with all you are offering them, they won't miss out on any vitamins and minerals, and would keep the vitamin supplements at a low level (they may be more for your peace of mind than for their needs). When you take the eagerly awaited pics of Bambi and Sefi in their new cage (hint, hint), perhaps you could also take some of the natural mixes you have bought, such as the Versele Laga Nature Herbs Immunity? It will be very helpful to others putting together their own mixes.
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Post by malteser60 on Sept 12, 2011 14:04:31 GMT
Kins, I posted on my blog on the other thread about quantities I feed my goos and range of food. I've been feeding them this diet for over a year now (1 year and 3 months to be precise) so I've got a fair idea of how much they eat, selective feeding, etc.
First of all I tend to disagree a bit with what Maravilla says about the selective feeding, and that most animals will selectively feed if they can. One driving factor for this is the in-built drive they have inside them to take advantage of fattier, higher energy foods when it is available, even though they are pet degus and not in the wild (where this behavious is crucial to survival). Animals don't tend to think in the long-term, and goos certainly don't, so your goos won't be thinking, well, I'm going to be living in this cage for the rest of my life with food always available. To back this up is the goos natural instinct of taking food and burying it 'for later', even though they will always be getting food and their food bowl will always be full.
That said, however, if you provide a diverse enough natural food they will get all the nutrients they need. So with mine, they only get a shot glass (approx. 10g) of xtravital in the morning for both of them, and a science selective square each in the evening! The rest is made up of leaves, flowers and herbal mixes (although I must admit after typing it out I realised that they are getting more grain-based feed than I would like them to have). So far mine eat pretty much everything except the small brown pellet bits in the xtravital (i'm guessing this is the soya meal part of the food).
What you will probably find, however, is that they will continue to selectivly eat the xtravital however, because you are feeding them a far bigger range of foods, any nutrients they miss out by the selective feeding will be made up for by the more natural mix. And that they will love. May take a few days to get round to it, but once they do there is no going back for the goos. Mine started on P@H nuggets, but after 5 months or so they decided that the natural mix (fed in addition to the nuggets) was far nicer than the nuggets and refused to eat them. They especially love the flowers and pretty-much snatch them out of my hand ;D
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Post by Maravilla on Sept 12, 2011 16:27:24 GMT
First of all I tend to disagree a bit with what Maravilla says about the selective feeding, and that most animals will selectively feed if they can. Sorry but I don't get your point about selecting food. Could you please explain? Where do you disagree with what I said? edit: I wanted to express that nuggets make food selection impossible, something I consider as bad. Why shouldn't degus have the possibility to select what they want to eat?
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Post by fred on Sept 12, 2011 16:57:51 GMT
While maravilla and malteser sort out where they disagree (if at all), I wanted to say something about selecting food in general. This is something perfectly normal and I have seen it often that they refuse something one day and go for it first the next day. However, I have seen this only for fresh and dried natural food. For the two hard feed mixes I had used, the refusal of some bits (up to 50%!) was permanent.
If one has a natural mix of say 12 ingredients and they refuse 3 of them (for the sake of argument even permanently), they still will have a balanced diet with all the necessary goodies. However, if they only get hard feed and they consistently refuse some parts, this can have consequences for their health. This is simply because we do not know what the concentration of sugar, vitamins and minerals are in the bits they select.
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Post by davx on Sept 12, 2011 17:11:28 GMT
Aww... people you write so much...
Jordan, concerning allergic reactions... often the grass flowers are the main problem and the dust is only a secondary one. But for the rest I agree. I intended to show the divers aspects concerning the topic hay and it is even not a question of good or bad. Interestingly for rabbit owner it is a health problem, if only vegs are fed and fresh herbs are lacking. But I assume that rabbits rely stronger on fresh grasses and herbs than our degus.
@fred Most fed mixes are JR but also Hansemann or The Pet Factoty (similar contents) and Agrobs. Recently more owner use also natural (handmade) herbal mixes for rabbits.
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Post by davx on Sept 12, 2011 17:39:48 GMT
@aya That sounds good, I remember I started similar to alter my degus food after feeding them cavy food (pellets, grains, peas, baked cereals/extrudates), fruits and other terrible stuff for around two or three years. It was around 2002 or 2003, when I started to enrich the cavy food with dried vegs, later I got also JR products and started to use them. I also made attempts to dry my own herbs and gave fresh twigs with leaves. Them I joined the deguforum and I avoided as consequence many food items by that time believed as toxic. For a given time I used in particular JR Farm Degu Spezial as base mix and enriched it with dried herbs and vegs. In 2005 or 2006 I started then to introduce fresh herbs in small quantities and it has taken several months until I tried it in bigger quantities and finally tried to replace the hard food.
It was hard for me to convince my gut feeling, my head already knew that this was good, but my gut feeling had even some concerns and I had the feeling experimenting with the health and even the life of my degus, but the opposite was true. The degus took advantage from the new diet and they still do. Important is to introduce new food gradually and to offer them a diverse and broad offer of herbs, vegs, flowers and so on.
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Post by malteser60 on Sept 12, 2011 18:17:47 GMT
Maravilla - fred has summed up what I was trying to say quite neatly I guess what I was disagreeing upon is the general statement that selective feeding is ok. Selective feeding is not ok if the degu is not getting those missing nutrients from an alternative choice. However, if the degus choose to eat a flower one day, then not the next, then I think that's great and it's good that the degus are given the freedom and choice to eat what they want when they want to. So I didn't really have a big disagreement with you Maravilla, honestly!
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