# Some thoughts on sunflower seeds.



## Oneweek22

Im gonna start by saying when I first got mice and I didnt know any better. I fed them largely on sunflower seeds until I noticed them gaining weight. I decided to limit what I gave them but then again I was breeding brindles and seem to be known for weight problems. Im sure the fatty diet did not help at all. This time around I still feed sunflower seeds sparingly since they love it so much but it dont see anyone doing this. Is there something wrong with these seeds being fed to mice? Correct me if Im wrong here.


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## moustress

You are quite right; a sunflower seed is like a big fat steak for a mousie. I no longer feed them at all as I think that corn, sunflower seeds, or peanuts as all of them, in my experience, increase the incidence of tumors. Corn is thought by many to be carcinogenic for meeces, and all three items are often contaminated with a fungus that produced aflatoxins, which can even harm humans if the exposure is high enough.

A good diet for meeces should consist largely of whole grain, with the addition of some healthy form of vegetable oil like safflower, linseed, or something like that, along with some source of protein.

You are right about brindles, though, they get fat even on a very low fat diet. There's just no way around that, I'm afraid. HEy, at this time of year, the fattie mousies make good hand warmers, and they run away very well, so, enjoy!


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## bethmccallister

Exactly, moustress knows what she's talking about. After reading several documents pertaining to tumor research there is a link to the chemical that is released when mice digest corn and sunflower seeds that can cause cancer. It was previously thought that tumors related to eating corn were due to mold growth on the corn.

I eliminate corn completely and the only sunflower seeds that they get are in the mix of bird seed that is hulled and chipped into fine pieces. I feed rolled oats, birdseed mix with millet, milo, canary seed, etc, whole grain oat cereal for the vitamins, puffed brown rice, high quality meat based dog food, and pumpkin seeds as treats. Nursing moms get a bit of whole gain oat toast with a sprits of butter daily.


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## Oneweek22

I also use a bird seed base as you described and sprinkle cat or ferret food. I give veggies and greens as treats. I didnt think about oats. That would be great to mix in thanks. The sunflower seeds are premixed into the bird seed. I like the price so I would hate to stop buying it as it doesnt have too much sunflower in it but if its a serious health concern Id rather pick them out by hand :lol: Really I would!


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## moustress

Believe me, you will not be the first one to hand sort throughj bags of grain and seeds. I have been obsessed with giving my meeces the best possible diet for years. It would not be stretching to say I often spend more time preparing their nightly rations than I do on feeding the hubby and myself, on the average.

Dried high quality whole grain bread is such a good treat for meeces; mine riot if I don't put enough little pieces in each tank for everyone to have some right away. I think that growing grain began the centuries long relationship between human and mousie, and bread cemented their attachment to humans. Who or what can resist the smell of bread baking!


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## Oneweek22

I used to work in a sitdown restaurant and they sliced fresh rye bread daily for their famous ruebens so I took home the ends that they would put aside for me. My mice loved it soooo much. They would eat the entire inside and leave the hard outer shell. It looked like a little house when they were done and I would tear a little door for them! Yes mice love whole grain bread. I had a mouse that loved flies but she passed a couple years ago. I have the ability to catch them by hand but now they will go to my tree frog. Anyway, the jist is no sunflower got it. Got some handpicking to do with the remaining birdseed. Ill enjoy it :lol:


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## Oneweek22

I just gave my mice some oatmeal and they went crazy over it! What is oatmeal anyway? What is it made from?


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## m137b

Oats


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## Oneweek22

Haha very funny. I coulda figured that out myself.


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## racingmouse

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.


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## bethmccallister

Yes, good point about the bread, you have to read what's in it. I read the labels for my family's nutrition as well as the mice. No high fructose corn syrup for me, my kids or my furry kids either! Other then that I try to by whole grain products that aren't bleached or derived from corn, soy, or wheat and don't have anything artificial including colors or flavors.


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## racingmouse

Glad you agree with me there beth. It was something I thought about just recently and although my girls only get very small bits of toast or hard wholemeal bread, I worry now about the additives that are added to make the bread rise or preservatives for shelf life.

It`s getting to the stage where I`m running out of ideas for treats! Sunflower seeds are out and now the bread is going the same way because of the additives. :roll:


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## bethmccallister

Pumpkin seeds are a huge hit at our house. I grow them all summer then dry them out and freeze them for mouse treats all year long.


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## racingmouse

My gerbils used to love pumpkin seeds and they are lower in fat than sunflower seeds, but the mice never care for them to be honest.


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## geordiesmice

I bought a few sunflower hearts today mice love them, too many make a fat mouse, I bought my sack of poultry mix, sack of wild bird seed with aniseed no sunflowers and my pedigree chum small bite kibble which i dont mix in the feed because all the seeds sink to the bottom so things like sunflower kernels kibble bread / toast is given seperately.The thing is with fawn satin mice they are very prone to get fat unlike the siamese so I give the sunflower sparingly never tried pumpkin seeds they say they are nice for us to eat toasted?


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## Rhasputin

My understanding about corn is not only that it can be carcinogenic, but can also be bad for mice if it is the genetically modified version, that is used for about 90% or so of American corn products.
In feeds, it can increase the likelihood, and severity of tumors, and cause an increase in sterility in mice if fed over a few generations.


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## racingmouse

The first thing I do when I make up my girls mix, is pick out the yellow corn and the bright coloured extruded biscuits. I don`t trust the `EC permitted colourants` to be natural and why they feel the need to `dye` anything for the benefit of a pet is beyond me? It`s not as if the pet is`nt going to eat it because it`s a natural brown colour? So why they use these colourants like greens and reds is silly. Why bother adding them at all? Maybe they think the rabbit or the mouse or the rat will think, `oh dear, I don`t like the colour of that brown biscuit because it`s not green`.... :roll:

I buy sunflower hearts for the wild birds, but have stopped feeding any sunflower seeds to the mice. I still have some in a tub, but will only feed one or two as a treat to finish them off and won`t be buying anymore. Rosie (my oldest mouse) expects a sunny now and then so being nearly 17 months old, I don`t want to deprive her of her favourite munchie! But I am restricting them more though.


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## geordiesmice

You can get poultry corn and poutry mix the poultry corn I keep away from the poultry mix is full of natural ingredients the pieces of corn you see dyed bright yellow you dont get in poultry mixes


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## racingmouse

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:


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## geordiesmice

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.


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## racingmouse

I agree with that theory geordie about becoming slightly paranoid about certain foodstuffs. I know I`ve got myself worrying over certain things and at the end of the day, unless the mice are exposed to high amounts of something, I`m sure it would`nt be detrimental to their health. But I do like to make sure their diet is reasonably balanced. I worry that I don`t feed enough protein and then I worry that I`m feeding too much if I start adding dog kibble for instance. So maybe I should just look at each grain as it comes and be content that what they do eat is enjoyed, which it is. I like them to eat as simple a diet as possible and years ago when we all cottoned onto the rat `Shunamite` diet, that detailed how to add human cereals and dog kibble into rat diets, this kind of swayed many people into changing the way they fed their rats and mice. I`m finding now that it is much better to ditch that science and look at more natural grains and seeds and not add things like dry pasta, human cereals (even if they are low in sugar) and certain dog kibbles (only if you feed a rabbit mix as your base).

Because mice are omnivores, they do require a good source of protein, but I`m happy that my rabbit mix (12.5% protein) and the other ingredients I add like kallo organic puffed rice, buckwheat, organic jumbo oats and millet gives them a good basis. I still don`t add dog kibble, but may do in small amounts if I can find a really good chicken based kibble and find one the girls will actually eat.


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## geordiesmice

I worry about some of these feeds I and im sure your mice are healthy RM I use kibble and sprinkle a little in there food.The Rabbit food when I used too add it they seem to leave the little bown bits and black bits quite wastefull so I stopped using it.I love the wild bird seed that is very natural and nutrtious without sunflower seeds.


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## racingmouse

Actually, my rabbit mix is a 3kg bag and cost £3.30p. By the time I throw away the masses of corn and small extruded biscuits and half the pea flakes, I`m left with the three grains wheat, flaked wheat, flaked barley and oats! So I could probably buy these as seperate grains if I wanted to, but I would either have to buy them online (from webites like Rat Rations and pay p&p on top) or would have to source them locally, which is`nt easy given that my Holland & Barratt shop is in a town I hardly frequent and supermarkets are limited where this sort of thing is sold.

It would save me the time and effort of painlessly picking out everything I don`t want, but at the same time, I wonder if buying the grains seperately would actually save me money anyway? By the time I buy each bag, add on the p&p, I would probably be much the same or more in terms of cost.


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## geordiesmice

It certainly would be better RM poultry mix have those grains in they eat all of it and if you could get some wild bird seed or even budgie or foreign finch you can add porridge oats if you cant get oats are there no pet stores near you?


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## racingmouse

Food for thought geordie. It`s something I could definately look into because it seems simpler to mix all these grains and seeds from different sources and ditch the rabbit mix. I will stick with it for now and do some research on what`s available around here. The guy that orders all my foods can usually get many of the brands so I may have a look at the poultry ranges.


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## mich

Best to give Sunflwer seeds in moderation. And the best ones are ones you buy for birds. Not the ones you plant.


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## rilence

I can't find recommended brands on forums, so I mix Harry Hamster mix (With corns picked out), Oxbow Hamster and Gerbil pellets, Mazuri lab blocks with organic seeds, nuts and grains (Brown rice, Rolled Oats, Linseeds, Pumpkin seeds etc.).

Also giving them 2 Taste of the Wild dogs kibbles per mouse per week. All of mine are not plump and looks well shaped


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## Laigaie

Which Mazuri lab block do you have access to?


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## moustress

I stay away from anything that's premixed; partly because I don't feed any corn or wheat and also because in a mix, the moisture contents of the seeds and the grains are different and the seeds get stale. (Yes, I do taste what I feed the meeces from time to time. I rely on smell and taste and reject any seed or grain that smells musty.)

I don't feed them sunflower seeds or peanuts at all. My concerns with corn, wheat, and those seeds are allergies and cancer. I give my meeces safflower seeds, which they love.


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## Miceandmore64

Mice with sunflower seeds all there life. (30 mice and up to two years) haven't ha any tumours


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## mich

I feed my mice sunflower seeds mixed in with other feed but use sparingly. They like maize too.


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## rocketmdove

i had no idea that corn could cause cancer! i will take it out of my mice's feed imediatly!


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