How can I feed a dzhungarik hamster, and what can not? These questions come to everyone who has become the owner of this cute fluffy lump. The animals are so cute, small and defenseless, and I would not want to harm them ... So what kind of rules should be followed when creating a menu for a dzhungar hamster at home? What can a hamster be fed with, and what is absolutely forbidden to give him? This will be discussed in our article.
Introduction
Violation of the feeding regimen is the most common cause of diseases of hamsters of various species. The correct preparation of the menu is extremely important for this animal, because it eats up to 70% of its body weight per day! Therefore, it is necessary to carefully select feed for dzhungariki, calculate their diet.
A significant danger for hamsters is overeating, so the size of the servings is also worth paying attention to. Feed the dzhungariki should be no more than twice a day. In addition, it is necessary to provide them with the opportunity to actively move. The cage should be spacious enough. It is advisable to install a running wheel in it.
It is especially important to observe these conditions if the dzhungarik hamster was purchased not at the breeder, but at the pet store. Breeders monitor the cleanliness of the breed, but in other conditions, dzhungariki can be kept together and uncontrollably interbreed, for example, with Campbell hamsters, which are prone to overeating and obesity even more.
How can I feed a jungar hamster? Diet basis
The main part of the menu of these funny kids should be seeds and cereals in different combinations. They also love beans. So, what can you feed the dzhungariks? The list of essential foods in the diet is presented below:
Nuts.
Sunflower seeds
Corn.
Oats (can be flattened, hercules).
Peas, beans.
Buckwheat.
It is also allowed to add pumpkin seeds, melons, zucchini to the diet. You can independently enrich the purchased mixture for your pet by adding hamster “delicacies” - chickpeas and hazelnuts. Willingly animals eat sesame seeds.
Cereal Feeding Precautions
It should be noted that we did not mention the enrichment of the mixture by accident. After all, the question of how to feed a dzhungar hamster is often of particular urgency, since the pet simply refuses to eat something that it does not like. Some owners have to buy several packages before the hamster finds a treat to their taste. It should be remembered: only mixes for hamsters are suitable for dzhungars! No other can be used. Do not experiment with food for decorative rats or guinea pigs, hoping that the pet will like the treat. Such food can seriously damage his health. Special mixtures with oatmeal for people - muesli - are also extremely harmful to them.
How can I feed dzhungarik from fruits and vegetables
When compiling a diet for a dzhungarik, one should proceed from the fact that in nature these animals feed mainly on cereals. However, fruits and vegetables may also be beneficial to them. But far from all - care must be taken. You can give dzhungars, firstly, cucumbers and tomatoes. But not the greenhouse ones, which do not bring much benefit even to people, but seasonal ones.
Secondly, they will benefit from corn, as well as fresh peas and beans (you can - in pods). They can be given cauliflower or broccoli, Peking, and white, Brussels and red cabbage is highly undesirable. Pumpkin, zucchini, eggplant, squash, and carrots, turnips, radishes and radishes will benefit, despite the bitterness, celery, bell peppers, and beets. As you can see, the choice is quite large.
From fruits, these fluffy babies can be given apples, bananas, plums, peaches, apricots, grapes. From berries - cherries, cherries, strawberries, gooseberries, currants, blueberries. It is not worth giving a pear to these animals because of possible problems with indigestion. Understanding how to feed dzhungariks at home, you need to remember this. Also, remember that fruits should make up no more than two percent of the hamsters ’total diet. You can give them at a time a piece with a diameter of not more than one centimeter.
It is imperative to ensure that the half-eaten slices of vegetables and fruits do not remain and do not linger for a long time in the cells. Hamsters tend to accumulate food reserves, and they will not miss this opportunity. But on fruits and vegetables, of course, this affects not the best way. They decay, and if the jungle eats such a bite, it can have serious health problems.
In addition, it should be remembered that any fruit and vegetables to the animal can be fearlessly offered no earlier than he turns two months old. Until this time, use traditional cereals in their raw form (for feeding babies - cereals).
Protein food
In the wild, the dzhungarik can eat carrion, and sometimes even able to attack even smaller animals. Therefore, in captivity he needs to provide additional proteins. How can this be done?
First, a hamster can be given lean boiled chicken, preferably white meat (breast). Secondly, when answering the question of how to feed dzhungariks from childhood, experts recommend giving them hard-boiled eggs. You can start with quail, then add chicken. Protein needs are also well compensated by dairy products. What can and can not be dzhungariks from their list? Low-fat kefir and cottage cheese are suitable for animals. You can use natural yogurt, but without any aromatic and flavoring additives, and also no more than 1% fat. Seafood hamsters are allowed to give shrimp. They must first be boiled and cleaned.
Special delicacies bought in the store will help diversify the protein menu: earthworms, grasshoppers. You can also use the gammarus crustacean, which is usually acquired by aquarists for feeding fish. It must be understood that worms dug out of the earth with their own hands will not work - only from a pet store. This is a guarantee that the pet will be healthy.
A little bit about greens
For normal development and livelihoods, dzungarik hamsters definitely need green food. It can be herbs, both familiar to humans, and ordinary herbaceous plants, which are inedible for us. So, animals with pleasure eat leaves of nettle and plantain, clover, salad, dill and parsley. It is not recommended to give them, as mentioned above, spinach. However, the real delicacy and delicacy for them will be bamboo shoots, alfalfa, sprouted wheat and oat seeds with green sprouts.
Any suitable greens should be thoroughly washed in running water before being given to a pet and dried thoroughly.
Cooked dishes
And from the usual "human" food, what to feed the dzungarik with? The list (it is possible and impossible - the main criteria for its compilation) will be as follows.
Can:
Boiled porridge without milk.
Cereals soaked overnight in water.
It is impossible:
Broths and cereals, soups on them.
Butter, sour cream, milk, cream.
Milk porridge.
The following products are strictly prohibited to such a pet:
Sausages, sausages, sausages.
Chocolate and other sweets (such as cookies).
Honey.
Sugar, salt.
A variety of citrus fruits.
Pineapples
Watermelons
Avocado.
Kiwi.
Grenades.
Onion and garlic.
From nuts - almonds.
From greens - sorrel, mint leaves.
Potatoes of any kind - raw and boiled, and even more so fried. It contains too much starch and may contain large amounts of pesticides.
Brown bread (while white bread and various diet bread are also not recommended, but this ban is not so categorical).
Any kind of cheese.
- The seeds of fruit trees, their seeds. Before feeding jungarik fruit, you must check that there are no seeds or bones of trees left in them.
- Acorns.
Many veterinarians also do not recommend giving hamsters special drops, designed specifically for rodents. According to them, they may contain harmful components.
Leaves and tree branches
What can feed the dzhungariks except food? Veterinarians and experienced breeders recommend using tree branches with leaves to feed animals. It must be remembered that it is strictly forbidden to use coniferous branches in this quality! You can only deciduous trees, and especially fruit trees.
A rash selection of dietary components can cause not only the disease of the pet, but also its death. To offer him branches of apple, plum, cherry, oak, maple, linden, poplar or other trees only if they grew up in an ecologically clean area, and not near landfills and roads.
Branches that were collected in advance or purchased at pet stores should first be scalded with boiling water. It is worth noting that this specific delicacy not only saturates the body of animals with useful substances, but also helps to clean the teeth and grind them, which is very important for rodents.
How to get out of the situation in autumn and winter? Vitamin Supplements
In late autumn and winter, experts recommend using dried fruits to feed animals. According to veterinarians, this will not bring your baby anything but good. Another thing is that you need to choose dried fruits that have not been processed with harmful substances for longer storage. So, for example, dried apricots can be treated with sulfur. For an adult, it is also harmful, but due to the large mass of the body, poisoning with it is most likely not to happen. The kid can be inflicted irreparable damage to the dzhungarik.
What dried fruits can and should be present in the diet of charming kids-dzungariki? What can and cannot be fed yet?
Dried pears and apples, dried apricots, raisins, as well as bananas (more precisely, chips from them) will certainly benefit furry babies, of course, subject to all the above conditions.
How to feed newborn dzhungars
When feeding newborn babies, experts recommend using baby food for the first months of life. It should be free of salt and sugar. Dzhungariks, who are not enough mother’s milk, can also be given porridge without milk. So, what can feed the dzhungariks from childhood? The list here, unfortunately, is not large, but it is definitely not worth expanding it to avoid troubles.
The subtleties of compiling a diet
Jungaric babies, experts say, are prone to diabetes. Therefore, fruits containing a large amount of glucose should not be given often. Vegetables in this case will be much more useful, since they contain a large amount of fiber, but they have practically no sugar. If you want your pet to feast on sweets, better give him a slice of carrot.
When compiling a diet for a baby dzhungarika, it should be remembered that these animals, in general, are omnivores. They can gladly eat everything that came to them in a bowl, even if these products are harmful to them initially. Therefore, going to get such an animal, study all the subtleties of caring for it. Do not assume that the hamster will not eat food that is not suitable for him. On the contrary, he would gobble it up with pleasure, and then he would fall ill. If there are even the slightest doubts about the value and harmlessness of one or another product for the jungar, it is better to be careful and not give it to him. In the end, the list of allowed healthy products for these hamsters is quite large.
Finally
It must be understood that most “human” dishes are completely unsuitable for feeding Jungar hamsters. First of all, this applies to fatty, fried and too spicy or salty foods. The following rule: all plants, vegetables and fruits, as mentioned above, must be grown or harvested under certain conditions, not contain herbicides, pesticides or other harmful substances. Otherwise, it will only get worse, and if you want to give your furry pet the most necessary things, you can undermine his health. If troubles did occur, and the dzhungarik hamster was ill from malnutrition, veterinarians recommend treating him with rice broth. This is a very effective tool.