Dyed food

[jewels1171]

We got a large like 20 pound bag of gerbil food. It has sunflower seeds, smalls seeds, pellets of blues and greens that are clearly dyed, and small dyed seeds. My gerbils’ poop is green. I have tried to sort the food, but it is super hard to get everything sorted, and therefore have neglected that. My previous post on “yellow butt” might be because of the dyed food but we just don’t know, so please somebody tell me if there’s something I should do. 

[PipSqueak]

You should probably find a different undyed food or make your own. Their blue poop is most likely due to the green and blue dye and you should discontinue the use of that food. Too much consumption of dye could make your gerbils sick. I am not an expert on this and have never heard of this happening so hopefully someone more experienced comes along but that is my opinion.

[gerbiltopia]

I would change the food at once. Gerbils have very sensitive digestive systems and while it seems like they haven't been harmed so far, even a small risk isn't worth taking.

In addition to the coloring you saw (which is a red flag in itself), it's generally not a great idea to give your gerbils heterogeneous food that includes seeds because they'll tend to play favorites and eat the fatty seeds leaving the rest for later. This makes their diet unbalanced. Look for simple pellet foods which guarantee that your gerbil gets all the nutrition it needs, and use seeds only as a treat for training or playing.

If the sunflower seeds in your current bag of food are undyed, you may be able to use them for this purpose so the bag won't be completely wasted. Just make sure that your gerbils' poop remains brown and firm.

[Markpd]

I've seen food pellets been advised against by some sites/people, even if you know that the composition of the pellets are ideal, it makes for a rather dull food for them if you're feeding them the same thing all the time.
As for feeding them a variety of seeds and them picking out their favourites (I've seen that mentioned too), yes I find my boys do that when I 1st put the food in, but as them come back to it before the next feed (I feed them once a day), I see them eating the other seeds. So yes they leave it for later, but they do it eat much of it later, that's the point . So they shouldn't be getting an unbalanced diet.

I'd be interested to see what other owners think.

[LilyandDaisy]

I've found selective feeding mostly happens with foods containing lots of pellets in addition to fatty seeds, such as Gerri Gerbil. The pellets are boring so gerbils avoid them. I feed a mix of two seed mixes (Bunny Dwarf Hamster Dream and Rodipet Gerbil) and mine eat everything over the course of two or three days. A food consisting of a single type of pellet will of course also prevent selective feeding but they're very dull for the gerbils and offer no enrichment.

[jewels1171]

We have sorted some of it... gerbil food is not the cheapest thing to buy. Anyone have recommendations on what I should buy? I usually sort out all the sunflower seeds as well, as I have heard a lot on that.
How many seeds could I give them per day? Can I increase the amount due to pregnancy of a gerbil?
Also, I am very interested in learning how to make my own gerbil food, so if any of you have some recipes to share that would be awesome.

[jewels1171]

Oh yeah and does every bit of colored food need to be sorted? We sorted some but that’s gonna be pretty hard because some of it is the size of rice grains.