Making Homemade Gerbil Food [ November 2021 ] 🥕

[@beccstaarr33]

I've always considered making my own mix but never know what to include ingredient wise. thank you for the inspiration. great video as always

[@ellegreg9446]

Love video! New to owning gerbils and am truly amazed how fantastic they are. Have male and female and am hoping they breed. Food in general has tons of unnecessary fillers. Have been looking for healthier options and your video includes all of that. Does not have to be perfect and is obviously better then what is available in general. Would you please put in amounts of what you used to create their food. Really appreciate all you do. Thank you!

[@TheGerbilVine]

Thank you. It's a personal choice of mine not to share the exact nutritional content in case anything goes wrong with anyone's gerbils. , I wouldn't want that to come back on me and I wouldn't feel right About it. There are easily many breakdowns online that you could research, I was able to figure it all out in less than 10 minutes. I put this video out on my channel as educational purpose to let people know that they can go out and easily make their own food if they want it to, As a substitute to store bought food with many fillers. I hope you can understand my reasoning behind not wanting to share the exact formula.

[@melodyg5529]

i make my homemade mix using stuff from bulk barn too! didnt know nyger seeds were safe for gerbils. mine hate fennel idk what i could use to replace that

[@TheGerbilVine]

You could try dill! My boys weren't a huge fan of it either. So cool you also go to Bulk Barn :)

[@melodyg5529]

@@TheGerbilVine thank you! and yeah its great since i dont have a scale so i use theirs

[@gracehughes6202]

Is it normal that my gerbils don’t eat fruit/ veg / fresh foods ? I’ve offered them , romaine lettuce , peas , sweet corn , carrot , broccoli , red and green peppers , spinach , apple ,cauliflower . I’ve also tried them with plain chicken , brown pasta , hard boiled eggs and they don’t eat that either . They literally don’t eat any of it . I’ve had them for about a month now and they get offered a selection every other day and never eat it , they only eat their homemade seed mix . I’ve also tried giving them fresh foods at different times of the day and put it in different locations in their cage and it makes no difference . I’m concerned they are missing out nutritionally What can I do ?

[@TheGerbilVine]

I have heard of some gerbils rejecting veggies. If you're super concerned & haven't already, I would attempt leaving the veggies in there overnight. I give my boys a salad around 7pm, and remove leftovers at 7am ( if there are any ). Other than that, just keep trying different veggies, if they don't like fresh, you could try dried, or even puree them or buy baby food ( sugar free, and give small amounts). My boys currently love spinach, thyme ( a herb ), cucumber and red leaf lettuce. I used to have picky gerbils too, and now they love their greens.

[@gracehughes6202]

@@TheGerbilVine Thank you for your reply . I have tired them with cooked veg and baby food and puréing my own veggies and that doesn’t work either they just leave it . They don’t like dried veggies and fruits either . They don’t even eat treats either . The only thing they eat is their seed mix and mealworms . So the staple of their diet they eat which is good . I leave the veggies in there from about 5 pm until around 7 am and they don’t touch it . I will just have to keep trying new things with them and possibly come to accept they are fussy . Is it possible they are fussy as babies and begin to change ? They are only 14 weeks old so that are still babies really :)

[@TheGerbilVine]

@@gracehughes6202 it could certainly be due to age. Or that they just have other options they prefer, like seeds and meal worms. I would just keep introducing small amounts as you've been doing, and hope they take to it at some point. Don't be discouraged!

[@gracehughes6202]

@@TheGerbilVine I will keep trying veggies and fruits with them and maybe try new ones and in different forms . Thank you , hopefully they will grow out of it :)

[@melodyg5529]

you should stop trying for a bit and offer again in a month or so. my babies were picky eaters before as well so i let them be for a bit then tried zucchini and they loved it and since then they will try anything

[@RachelStormborn]

For those of us with issues like Dyscalculia (a learning difficulty that affects an individual's ability to do basic arithmetic such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division), I really wish you would share not just the ingredients but the amounts you use of each. I want so much to give my gerbils a great home-made diet that ticks all the boxes but I am utterly incapable of understanding and doing the math required. People like me need people like you, who can/have done all that math, to share the results right down to how much of what ingredients you have decided best fulfills all a gerbils dietary needs. Please, think again about sharing the details of your gerbil food mix. You can always include a disclaimer in the video to cover any concerns you might have in doing so. Please?

[@TheGerbilVine]

Hi, I sympathize with your disability, and appreciate your perspective. The reason I did not include my measurement as this wasn't a how to video, just a discussion. Each gerbil also needs different nutritional requirements based on age, weight, activity level, etc. There is no universal formula, and I didn't want people feeding their gerbils off measurements. Hope this clears it up a bit. I also don't want to be responsible if someone feeds their gerbil my diet, and something goes wrong. I would feel so horrible, and because I'm not physically making the food, any off measurement can cause an imbalance to the entire diet, which can impact their health and well being. If you want to, you can reach out to me privately at [e-mail] & I can try to help you figure it all out.

[@RachelStormborn]

@@TheGerbilVine TY for your gentle reply

[@pennyreusch9295]

What is the point of this video if you don’t provide the recipe?

[@TheGerbilVine]

The point is to inspire others that may be interested in researching and making their own food. The reason I did not include my measurement as this wasn't a how to video, just a discussion. Each gerbil also needs different nutritional requirements based on age, weight, activity level, etc. There is no universal formula, and I didn't want people feeding their gerbils off measurements. Hope this clears it up a bit. I also don't want to be responsible if someone feeds their gerbil my diet, and something goes wrong. I would feel so horrible, and because I'm not physically making the food, any off measurement can cause an imbalance to the entire diet, which can impact their health and well being.

[@PetConnectionInternational]

I'm very glad you decided to include a lab block to your mix, this should help make sure Jerry and dusk stay nice and healthy ☺️ I'm still struggling to understand what people's problem with corn is, I've heard a lot of complaints but have so far seen no research to back it up, do you have any research as to why you think it's a bad food for gerbils? I know for dogs and cats it's definitely a filler ingredient because they need more meat than anything else and aren't particularly good at breaking down tough plant matter, but for more herbivorous/omnivorous animals like our rodent friends, corn has plenty of nutritional value, at least as far as I'm aware. But if you've got some research to show me what the problem is, I'd love to take a look 🙂

[@TheGerbilVine]

Corn in itself is not a horrible food. What I have found when it comes to commercial gerbil food, is that corn is a cheap ingredient that is often listed within the 1st 3 ingredients as it fills up the bag. This means that companies spend less money putting in other ingredients and instead just focus on making up the bulk of the mix in corn. Corn is a carbohydrate and is mostly made up of starch, while it does provide nutrients, they aren't exclusive to corn and can be found in many other ingredients. Here are a few links I have come across: healthyanimalfood.com/can-gerbils-eat-corn/ gerbilforum.proboards.com/thread/28378/dried-corn-cob-nutrition www.rockstargerbils.com/gerbil-food.html From what I've come across, it would seem it's a filler ingredient, doesn't provide an abundant amount of nutrition, and can sometimes upset their stomachs if it is made up to be the bulk of their diet. I don't particularly have anything against corn, I just chose not to include it. I do get frustrated when companies choose to use corn and alfalfa as the main bulk of their gerbil food mix, when there are so many other healthy options that they could have included.

[@PetConnectionInternational]

@@TheGerbilVine oh okay, I think I understand where you're coming from, just usually all I hear is "corn bad" with no other context 😅 I've done a little more digging through the scientific literature to look up that claim about the studies on GMO corn, there are a few but they're very mixed, some identified a slight difference in some measures, others noted no difference at all, but all included corn at levels of 30% of the diet, so massively higher than what would be found in most commercial pet food (the one I use is 12% for example), I think any one ingredient making up 30% of a diet is going to cause problems unless in an animal with a super specialised diet, so that may skew the results in some cases I definitely agree with you about the alfalfa though, it shouldn't be a staple in omnivorous rodent diets, but if the overall fibre is balanced I suppose it wouldn't be the worst thing, but certainly not ideal

[@TheGerbilVine]

@@PetConnectionInternational I don't think any gerbil food is perfect, home made or store bought. With store foods we have less control over the ingredients and the percentage of said ingredient, and although my gerbils never experienced any issues with their brand of food, I did notice that it contained 3 types of corn, flaked, ground, and corn meal. As well as alfalfa. All gerbil foods i have seen seem to contain one or the other, within the first few ingredients, so it makes up the bulk of the mix. Too much in my opinion. Thanks for your insight! I agree that too much of anything is no good for gerbils. Sensitive little things :)

[@PetConnectionInternational]

@@TheGerbilVine yes I agree, nutrition is probably the most difficult thing to get right and find information on, especially with such tiny sensitive creatures