Homemade Mixes

[jon&mim]

so... after a lot of trawling through posts on here and looking at what other people use in their seed mixes i thought i would add some new things to my tesco order this morning!

inside my first batch is:

mustard seeds (60g)
poppy seeds (100g)
coriander seeds (40g)
cumin seeds (37g)
buckwheat (500g)
pearl barley (500g)
flax seeds (150g)
sesame seeds (300g)
quinoa (300g)


i got them out separately to introduce them to the different sample piles i had laid out on the floor and they literally didn't touch any of them apart from brian had 2 bits of pearl barley and terence broke a coriander seed open. my plan was to put a tsp of these in their food bowls once a day? then once i see what they are eating/avoiding i was going to amend batches in the future and scatter them around the cage instead.


i have also got in a lot of veg that i will be dehydrating over the next few days, so far i have tried:

broccoli (stems and florets)
cucumber
red and yellow cherry tomatoes

of which neither of my boys even attempted to try!!

i will be making my way through these veg and herbs over the next few days while i wait for the Wild Seed - Allotment Mix and the Soak Seed Mix both from Rat Rations to arrive:

cauliflower (florets, stem and leaves)
curled parsley
basil
flat leave parsley
rosemary
dill
parsnip
aubergine
sage
chives
spinach
celery (stalks and leaves)
leek (i assume only the green and not the white bulb area)
tarragon
red pepper
orange papper
green papper
thyme
carrot (plus the green leave tops)


i will still be using a few Science Select with the P&H nuggets everyday to keep an eye on the vitamin d but does anyone have any idea at all how i can get my boys to stop being so fussy?? they hate wet and basically anything that isn't a treat or nugget it seems! also, is there anything in that list i should avoid adding to the forage? i will be preparing it all over the next few days so let me know

[deguconvert]

I would avoid the cauliflower and broccoli (though I think you can give them any leaves that are on them), Aubergine, Celery, red, orange, and green pepper and give only the green tops of the carrots. The peppers are probably OK in very small amounts. Celery might be OK, but I would expect it to be rather weird in a dehydrated state. LOL! Better dehydrated (probably) than fresh. Please correct me if I'm getting it wrong, peeps!

The rest look fine!

Well done for trying these out. Keep offering them. They will eventually start trying them. It can take some time . . . months even, depending on the degu.

[moletteuk]

Buckwheat, barley and quinoa are grains and so need to fed only in small amounts as treats. The seeds you can feed more of are the high calcium oil seeds (some of which you mention), others would be black mustard/ kalwanji, dill, fennel, celery. Linseed/ flax is a low calcium oil seed so you need to be aware of that but it is useful for skin and fur health anyway. So you probably need to get some more of the seeds I mention here as they are the highest calcium ones and they balance out things like sesame, linseed and poppy which are valuable for other reasons than calcium. To make is simple you can just buy the two degu seed mixes from Ratrations, I don't know if you have time to add it to your order with them? (Get the main degu mix and the treat mix in a ratio of about 3 or 4 to 1.)

All the veg are fine in small amounts, it's sugar content and mineral content that you need to think about for veg, but stick to small amounts and you should be OK. Things like the kitchen herbs are better.

Reminder of nutrition info here: deguworld.proboards.com/thread/15602/vegetable-seed-nut-nutrition-charts


Give everything time for them to get used to things and do their own safety testing, it's all so new to them sometimes it takes a while for they to come around to the new things. Many of us find that our degus have their own safety testing procedures where they just sniff something at first, then maybe take a nibble and then maybe after a day or two they may eat a little bit more. Make sure you give everything more than once, and anything they refuse you can try again a month, 6 months or even 1 or 5 years later and you may get a completely different reaction. Now is a great time to try fresh plants from the hedgerows/ meadows/ weeds as they are just coming up and are at maximum sweetness and protein which makes them most palatable to reluctant degus, so any clean fresh grass, dandelions, plantain leaves, ground elder etc are well worth looking out for in the next few weeks.

From your list of veg I would think the herbs would be your best bet, mine have never liked fresh veg except for the odd brocolli floret. Mine have always liked quite a few different types of dried veg though, so I would be surprised if you don't get any hits there.

So, keep in mind that it's the high calcium oil seeds and mainly a selection of forage that are the important things to be adding to the pellets.

[jon&mim]

Apr 4, 2018 18:57:09 GMT moletteuk said:

Buckwheat, barley and quinoa are grains and so need to fed only in small amounts as treats. The seeds you can feed more of are the high calcium oil seeds (some of which you mention), others would be black mustard/ kalwanji, dill, fennel, celery. Linseed/ flax is a low calcium oil seed so you need to be aware of that but it is useful for skin and fur health anyway. So you probably need to get some more of the seeds I mention here as they are the highest calcium ones and they balance out things like sesame, linseed and poppy which are valuable for other reasons than calcium. To make is simple you can just buy the two degu seed mixes from Ratrations, I don't know if you have time to add it to your order with them? (Get the main degu mix and the treat mix in a ratio of about 3 or 4 to 1.)

All the veg are fine in small amounts, it's sugar content and mineral content that you need to think about for veg, but stick to small amounts and you should be OK. Things like the kitchen herbs are better.

Reminder of nutrition info here: deguworld.proboards.com/thread/15602/vegetable-seed-nut-nutrition-charts


Give everything time for them to get used to things and do their own safety testing, it's all so new to them sometimes it takes a while for they to come around to the new things. Many of us find that our degus have their own safety testing procedures where they just sniff something at first, then maybe take a nibble and then maybe after a day or two they may eat a little bit more. Make sure you give everything more than once, and anything they refuse you can try again a month, 6 months or even 1 or 5 years later and you may get a completely different reaction. Now is a great time to try fresh plants from the hedgerows/ meadows/ weeds as they are just coming up and are at maximum sweetness and protein which makes them most palatable to reluctant degus, so any clean fresh grass, dandelions, plantain leaves, ground elder etc are well worth looking out for in the next few weeks.

From your list of veg I would think the herbs would be your best bet, mine have never liked fresh veg except for the odd brocolli floret. Mine have always liked quite a few different types of dried veg though, so I would be surprised if you don't get any hits there.

So, keep in mind that it's the high calcium oil seeds and mainly a selection of forage that are the important things to be adding to the pellets.

yes i did order those in the end as i wasn't sure if they would like any of what i had so far so thought id just risk it and have everything available to try haha!

also, side note, my husband LOVES greens and he does all the cooking and i forgot to tell him all the stuff i had put on the side was for the goos so the minute my back was turned all my greens had disappeared into soups to freeze haha!!)

terrance did take a spinach leaf this morning and sniffed the mix of herbs i had dried out - for the last two days he has been ignoring me completely so that did make me really happy, hopefully when things are less stressful for him he will be up for trying new things still brian acted like i had rudely awaken him for no reason and was in no mood for cuddles lol!

[claire]

They are weird little creatures but erfo keep offering small amounts of different things. Mine likes dried carrot pieces. Won't touch fresh but parsnip likes the fresh not the dried. Weirdos when I cook I just cut a piece off for them once a week... peas are a favourite. And mine love love love fresh basil. Makes the cage smell lovely too haha

[deguconvert]

Yeah . . . the fragrance of basil is wonderful!!