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Post by dietpeppers on Apr 26, 2005 15:08:48 GMT -8
I am feeding 15 gerbils with 6 more babies who'll be eating before long. I'm thinking to give them all variety plus have the opportunity to stretch the food, to mix the following:
1 5lb bag Nutriphase Gerbil Mix
1 8lb bag Wild Bird Seed
1/2 Box of Cheerios (they love this stuff!!!)
Oats
1 box of Kitten food
Scattered raisins
I've been reading so much about feeding gerbils and I see these varieties, etc... but never seen an actual mix with this. What do you think?
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Post by AndreaS15 on Apr 26, 2005 21:00:44 GMT -8
Sounds great!
This is my personal gerbil mix
(BTW: My gerbisl are very spoiled LOL)
This is a mixture of my daily gerbil feed.
Dried Fruits
Raisins, Apple, Cranberries, Blueberry, Coconut, Raspberries, Papaya, Pumpkin, Banana, Pineapple
Dried Veggies
Carrots, peas, Parsley, Alfalfa leaves
Seeds
Oat kernels, Millet (2 types), Pumpkin, Safflower, Sunflower, Rose hips, corn, barley
Nuts
Peanuts, almonds, walnuts
Cereals & Other
Corn flakes, wheat flakes, Barley Flakes, Oat groats, Wheat bran, cornflower, Soya bean meal, Extruded rabbit pellets, Cat food, Alfalfa (hay and sometimes cubes)
Extras – Cheese, Applesauce, Cranberry juice, Lettuce, Carrots, Broccoli, grapes, apple, clover, Tomato, boiled egg, cucumber, Dog Cookie, spray millet, Cat/Kitten food, Dried corn on the cob, honey bars, Frozen Fruits & veggies (summer treat)
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Post by dietpeppers on Apr 26, 2005 21:08:53 GMT -8
I can't get mine to eat egg if their life depended on it. As for the applesauce though, how much is enough? I bet they would like that as they love apples!
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Post by dietpeppers on Apr 26, 2005 21:12:33 GMT -8
Ya know, I didn't list the treats I give them - but because I have three cats, I always have a large supply of cat treats on hand. They like those better than the dog biscuits although recently, I found dog biscuits at the Family Dollar store with different flavors - one being cheese. They do like chewing on those. They like raisins too - gosh don't they like raisins, LOL. There's actually a bird food for the wild which has raisins and something else in it. I'm thinking of buying that to mix in for them. The last time I mixed food, I mixed in the Nutriphase Hammie/gerbie mix, Nutriphase cockatiel seed as my Chancey is pickier than snot, and they also got some Kaytee cockatiel food which wasn't seeds, but colored things. Chancey wouldn't eat that either, so I threw it all in the bucket with cat food and cheerios, LOL.
My guy said what did I expect? They are rodents and rodents eat everything, LOL
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Post by AndreaS15 on Apr 26, 2005 21:23:34 GMT -8
LOL... He's be surprised how picky some just can be.
I Like to mix a Cockateil mix that has no sunflowers, I use it for the 'base' of my mix.
As for the apple sauce I think a pop bottle lid size is more then enough. My Last gerbisl LOVED it, and 4 of the ones I ahve now I tryed to give them some, they stepped in it and freaked out LOL... so they are not as interested. I always use apple sauce for sick gerbils, it has alot of natural sugars and of course water to keep them hydrated.
Mine like the peanut butter dog cookies, but if my dog new the gerbils were getting HER treats she'd me mighty mad at me lol...
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Post by dietpeppers on Apr 26, 2005 21:28:12 GMT -8
I crack up at how this board sensors the type of bird I have and calls it a cockatiel, LOL.
Anyhow, I was thinking - to separate the seeds from the mix, I wonder if it could be poured through a pasta strainer. Hmmm... It seems as if those are the biggest pieces in the food. I may try that. I think it's so funny how the gerbils take those sunflower seends and dash off to separate parts of the cages to eat them.
One other thing I'm going to try are mealworms. That should be an exciting experiment while my daughter and I bought try to contain ourselves from throwing up, LOL
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Post by AndreaS15 on Apr 27, 2005 19:52:02 GMT -8
lol... i was wondering why it said "thingy"... lol I haven't tryed meal worms, I did want to try Crickets but the b/f won't let me bring live, loud bugs that could escape into our place. lol... Plus I think my males would be affriad of them, A big Fly got in there tank once, and they FREAKED lol... Good thing I was around to save them  |
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Post by dietpeppers on Apr 27, 2005 21:03:41 GMT -8
Ahh, poor things! Well, I bit the dust and bought mealworms tonight when I went out to get the degus a cage. I put three in all five of the tanks and now I'm interested to see what happens. One of my males already ate one, but the rest are still in the tanks, LOL
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