favourite food brand

[tasha]

What is your favourite brand of food to feed your gerbil? I like Ecotrition by 8-in-1 because it has no sunflower seeds and smells fresh, but i'm not sure that it is their favourite. Maybe because of the lack of sunflower seeds!

[Ritzie/Admin]

Most of the times I use Gerrie Gerbil, but it differs. I change sometimes. Depends on which shop I'll buy it.

[sweetie]

I like the 8in1 also. I detest picking for hours!! I do however pick up what is on sale and mix all the brands together. I also mix in some bird seed mix since they eat it as well. I put all the food in a big rubbbermaid tub and mix it up.

[piffthegerbl]

Kaytee Exact-It has no sunflower seeds and they love it!

[callimico]

Me to, I use Encore because that's the brand with the most variety in seeds, the other brands are very dull, and mostly millet I haven't found Kaytee, or L/M, just Brown's or Encore.

It's pretty good, but has a LOT of sunflowers in each handful (I pick most out and feed some as treats).

I found this on another food topic:

Sunflowers are actually full of unsaturated fats, which is essential for normal body functions and so are an important part of a Gerbils' diet added with the large amounts of vitamins and minerals in them, they are almost the perfect seed. Sunflower seeds also contain tryptophan, which helps relieve stress.
It is true, though that fed solely on a Sunflower seed diet gerbils will become fat and suffer from Osteoporosis. This is because of the relatively low content of calcium - which the large content of fat and protein actually binds with the calcium causing it to be useless. But then no one in the right mind would feed gerbils solely on a diet of Sunflower seeds - just this is where the idea that they are bad comes from. But if your mix appears to have excessive amounts of sunflower seeds then, I too would remove some.

Encore has:
13.25% Crude Protein
4.50% Crude Fat
9.25% Crude Fiber
14% Moistur.

So it's got a good mix for most my gerbils...and I just add and subtract different foods depending on each gerbils needs.

Best Protein/Fat Figures:
Non breeding gerbils - 12% protein, 6-8% fat
Breeding gerbils - 15-16% protein, 7-9%fat
Old gerbils - 10-11% protein 3-5% fat.

So Encore actually doesn't have enough fat, even with all the sunflowers and peanuts, I didn't really look at that before this topic. Maybe I should be giving them a little something extra? Each handful of food has almost a dozen sunflower seeds though...none of my gerbils are overweight, all have a slim/athletic appearance, most of the mature males are a little bulky, so maybe they don't have enough fat in their diet right now? Especially since their not even getting all the sunflowers in the mix, and even if I gave them all the sunflower seeds, it wouldn't be enough fat content?

[egirl]

Hi,
I'm new and , well I have to say L and M is packed with sunflower seeds. I had to sit and pick them out!

[piffthegerbl]

Welcome to the forum egirl! ;D

[egirl]

Thanks PiffThe Gerbil!! ;D
where do you find encore??