Some thoughts on sunflower seeds.

Interesting thread as I`ve also been guilty in the past of over-feeding sunflower seeds but as daily treats, rather than being in their main food dish.

They are high in fat, but I was`nt aware of the cancer risk. I was with corn and soya which I don`t feed anyway and have recently started cutting down, or cutting out sunflower seeds altogether. Thing is, you get so used to handing over little `sweeties` to the little faces mooching for something that you don`t realise how many seeds you are feeding them through the bars!

Wholemeal bread is a staple in this house and I always snip up a few bits for the girls (although Betsy is`nt mad about it) and again, I worry about bread.....why? Because if you look on the packet of bread, it does`nt just contain wholewheat and the like, you will also notice the E numbers and raising agents. Now this got me thinking that maybe these added extras might not be so healthy for mice? Not so much with weight issues, but with skin allergies, or causing a reaction of this type?

When you think about it, mice would pinch the wheat and oat grains from the bread mills, but nowadays, bread is added to with all these other agents and it`s these ingredients that worry me.

I would have thought that a poultry mix would be full of corn geordie as these types of birds do best on corn fed meal? Some can also have shrimp and shellfish ingredients added but these can be very high in protein so mice should`nt be fed those. It would be too much of a good thing! But not great for their health either. I think that`s why many people choose to mix their own home-made foods/mixes these days because they are so fed up with the wastage seen with many commercial mixes. I must throw away a good half kilo of corn and biscuits from my rabbit mix alone, but I gain the grains within it. But rather than buying oats, wheat and barley as seperates and mixing them myself, I don`t know that by doing this I would be mucking up the nutritional value. If Burgess did`nt fill the mix I use with so much corn and added more grains instead, the mix would be better value.

If I thought buying loose grains and seed and mixing my own would be just as good for the girls, I would do it. But you get so used to buying bags of mix and using that, you get into a routine and don`t want to change it incase it depletes what you feed. It`s probably just worrying over nothing (much like the dog kibble argument) but you never know what to do for the best really.

When I make a list of all the grains and seeds that mice benefit from, I can see how easy it would be to do a home-made mix and probably save money by doing it. :roll:

I used to have show bantams and poultry mix has lots of different stuff in wheat,barley,oats not alot of corn in as you buy that seperate for scatter feeding and corn is what makes the egg yolk a nice deep orange colour.Alot of mice breedersuse poultry mix .The thing is RM such as Rabbit mix which I use too its meant for rabbits so alot will be left mice in the wild will eat poultry mix the kibbled maize I think are the large pieces of yellow corn that look like a gold tooth I wouldnt give mice those.At the end of the day you have too feedthe mice and you dont want alot of wastage unfortunately its difficult these days toknow if seeds vegetation etc has been genetically modified because its not always put on the label if its GM it should be but its not always I use this mix and there is never anything left I dont worry about the additives in bread they dont get alot of it anyway we can get over paranoid about feeding as long as the mouse is healthy dont change the diet mine are healthy and happy.