Rose Hips, Rose Petals, Dried Peas, Red Clover, Dried Hibiscus - Exotic Nutrition

[muggsy'sgm]

HAVE SQUIRREL, WILL TRAVEL is the tune I've been humming lately. As our departure date approaches, I've been trying to come up with more ways to make Muggsy's Boo Balls more palatable/interesting to him. With Mazuri and Kaytee and FV formula and all kinds of other goodness...plus his daily CBD flour supplement...it gets challenging to keep him from getting bored. I have to change up the formula on his dehydrated nut squares AND his Boo Balls every other batch...or he turns his nose up at it. As it is now, he does not eat any hard rodent block (HHB, HHB Picky Eaters, Mazuri, Oxbow, Kaytee), so getting him to eat at least 7 or 8 Boo Balls a day is tricky.

I recently purchased a couple of "healthy snack" packs from Exotic Nutrition, and the picture of the packaging is below.

Are these safe items to use as accompaniment to some of Muggsy's special blended foods? The rose hips look neat to bury inside the Boo Balls, and the Dried hibiscus and rose petals...I could roll the Boo Balls in.

Anyone used these for greys? I am awaiting word from my trusty TSB before I even so much as open the packs!!!

297342

[Nancy in New York]

PennyCash recently wrote about her little squirrel Resilie getting these as a gift.
She posted a video of little Resilie eating some. They were a HIT!

Post #1084 https://thesquirrelboard.com/forums/showthread.php?43887-Resilie-at-the-vet-again/page55&highlight=

[island rehabber]

Those actually look like great healthy treats for squirrels, so long as they are not preserved in sulfur dioxide. The label should tell you somewhere. Unfortunately so many dried fruits and veggies and things like rose hips are preserved that way, which is what keeps me from one of my favorite things: dried pineapple.

[Diggie's Friend]

A couple of Rose Hips occassionally are fine to add to the diet; yet since they are high in oxalates, and vitamin C that supports oxalate formation. it wouldn't be nutritionally wise to add them this source as a staple to the Boo Ball recipe fed daily. Dried fruits increase the oxalate value of fruit by volume to that of fresh fruit. To digest dried fruit takes more moisture from the diet, which in turn can increase the promotion of Calcium oxalate stone formation, as water intake is a key inhibitor of stone formation.

Add Chia oil with the pumpkin seed oil together by measure into your recipe, using a measure that reflects (1/32 Tsp.) 2 drops of organic chia oil & Pumpkin oil & 1/64 Tsp. (1 drop) of the Pumpkin seed oil for each day's worth of the dough ball. To do this you will need to reduce the Coconut oil so the BB don't come out too oily and fatty.

[Diggie's Friend]

If you do the (above) already, you can add 4 Tsp. of applesause to a 8 day (16 pc.) recipe, 1/2 Tsp. daily,
(1/4 Tsp in each Boo Ball). Be sure you don't include any artificial sugar sources, only organic applesause with natural sugars, none added. Malic acid in applesauce has been found to well support the uptake of calcium.