Oxbow Essentials Healthy Handfuls Gerbil & Hamster Food
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Feed your hamster or gerbil a healthy diet free of seeds, high-sugar fruits and artificial preservatives, colors and flavors with Oxbow Essentials Healthy Handfuls Hamster & Gerbil Food. While hamsters and gerbils love seeds and fruits, they can be high in calories and low in nutritional quality. Consuming too much of these foods can cause finicky eating patterns and obesity. Oxbow Essentials Healthy Handfuls Hamster & Gerbil Food is a complete diet balanced with nutrients that help maintain proper nutrition, weight, digestive function and dental health. It contains a blend of timothy hay, oats and barley to provide vital nutrients that support daily function and performance in hamsters and gerbils. Serve with Oxbow hays to encourage foraging and provide enrichment for relieving stress and preventing boredom.
Key Benefits- Specially formulated to mirror a hamster/gerbils diet. This will ensure that your pet lives a healthy lifestyle. Completely balanced and nutritious.
- Fortified with stabilized Vitamin C, A and B12. This helps ensure that your pet's health and immunity system are in tip-top shape.
- Includes high-fiber Timothy hay meal that promotes healthy gastrointestinal health. Keep your pet's health at optimal level.
- Hamsters and gerbils are omnivores, which means they eat meat and plant material.
- This product uses farm-fresh timothy hay to provide the fiber content necessary to maintain intestinal health and prevent digestive upset.
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Item Number96004
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Food FormPellets
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Small Pet TypeGerbil, Hamster
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Special DietHigh Fiber
Timothy Meal, Pearled Barley (Rolled), Oat Groats, Flax Seed Meal, Canola Meal, Canola Oil, Wheat Gluten, Millet, Limestone, Flax Seed, Salt, Yeast Culture (Dehydrated), Mixed Tocopherols, Vitamin E Supplement, Choline Chloride, Zinc Proteinate, Zinc Sulfate, Ferrous Sulfate, Niacin, Copper Sulfate, Selenium Yeast, Vitamin A Supplement, Folic Acid, D-Calcium Pantothenate, Copper Proteinate, Riboflavin Supplement, Manganese Proteinate, Biotin, Manganous Oxide, Thiamine Mononitrate, Magnesium Sulfate, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Sodium Selenite, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Cobalt Carbonate, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Calcium Iodate, Rosemary Extract.
Guaranteed Analysis | |
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Crude Protein | 15.0% min |
Crude Fat | 4.5% min |
Crude Fiber | 10.0% min |
Crude Fiber | 15.0% max |
Moisture | 10.0% max |
Calcium | 0.6% min |
Calcium | 1.0% max |
Phosphorus | 0.4% min |
Vitamin A | 10,000 IU/kg min |
Vitamin D | 900 IU/kg min |
Vitamin E | 190 IU/kg min |
Animal | Under 6 Months / Pregnant / Nursing Daily Feeding (cup) | Adult Daily Feeding (cup) |
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Small Hamster | Unlimited | 1/8 |
Gerbil/Large Hamster | Unlimited | 1/3 |
Please note that these are guidelines. If your hamster or gerbil is overweight or underweight, please contact your veterinarian or Oxbow for more specific feeding information.
Note: Hamsters are known to hoard and hide their food, particularly females or those housed with other hamsters. Be sure to check for stockpiles of food and adjust daily rations as required.

Oxbow's Flagship Line
Oxbow's Essentials line is the diet that set the bar for today's small pet nutrition. There's a unique food for a variety of small animals—chinchillas, guinea pigs, rabbits, mice, rats, hamsters and gerbils. These uniform pellets provide the right nutrients for each species with no artificial preservatives, colors or flavors.


Treats for Enrichment
In addition to their foods, Oxbow's healthy treats are rewarding for small animals and their owners. Simple Rewards are made with wholesome, natural ingredients like freeze-dried fruits and veggies, Timothy hay, and aromatic herbs. They're great for training, bonding or simply adding a little variety.
The Gold Standard of Small Pet Nutrition
An ideal small animal diet includes 20% fortified foods for herbivores and 75% for omnivores for essential vitamins and micronutrients. Oxbow's three fortified food lines are recommended by veterinarians worldwide because they're specially formulated to meet the unique needs of small animals—a true gold standard of nutrition.

More Premium Diets From Oxbow
NATURAL SCIENCE: INDIVIDUALIZED NUTRITION
Adult guinea pigs and rabbits can benefit from individualized maintenance diets with novel ingredients for variety and long-strand fiber from three grass hays.

BENE TERRA: AWARD-WINNING ORGANIC FOOD
Gives rabbits and guinea pigs the nutrients they would find in their natural environment with ingredients that come from certified organic farmers.

About Oxbow
Family-owned and operated, Oxbow is passionately committed to helping small animals lead longer, healthier lives. Grown by experts on Oxbow's family of farms, their formulas and life-staged diets have defined the way small animals are fed today. From plant to pet, Oxbow products meet the highest standards time and time again.

Customer Reviews
87% Recommend
87% of reviewersrecommend this product
You've Already Reviewed This Item
112 Reviews
Showing 1-10 of 112 Reviews
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MY Hammies Love It
By HammyMommy on Jan 21, 2021
People keep leaving reviews about how other specific brands are better choices due to protein content; but when I look the the nutritional breakdown, they match Oxbow. My hamsters are healthy as can be and love this food. I prefer it over other choices due to the fact the hamsters will get picky and only eat what they like from the mixes. This food gives them a balanced diet no matter what. I haven't had a single hamster refuse to eat it, and I do give them other nutrients outside of it as well. Over all, it's a great product and I love the brand.
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We recommend
By monica on Dec 30, 2020
This food works very well for my hamster. The kibble shape is important, I think. I bought a bag of the organic version of this food and it's shaped like pellets (versus circles). My hamster started jamming his cheeks with it and every time we'd play with him, he'd spit it out on us. He never does that with this food so we've been buying this one consistently for a long time. Our Russian White hamster is almost 2 years old now and seems to be going strong.
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Awful food
By Jenna525 on Dec 30, 2020
This food is awful do not buy hamsters are omnivores and require protein not fiber like in hay this whole food is made out of hay you are basically starving your hamster.A good recommendation for hamster food is Mazuri rat and mouse diet and Higgins sunburst mix this and your hamster will have all tdd he nutrients it needs.
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Great quality
By Mataya on Jan 4, 2021
This was the hamster food recommended to us at the pet store. It doesn't contain seeds or anything the hamster might pick and choose from. Just healthy, timothy grass and other nutrients. Our hamster loves it!
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DONT BUY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
By Nugget on Jul 31, 2020
This is made up of mostly hate and hamsters cannot digest hey please do not buy this for hamsters. Also there is no different textures or anything so it makes the food very boring and makes your hamster sad! The only reason you should buy this is if the store you bought your hamster from was eating this cause you have to get them used to the new food!!!
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Do not buy. Hamsters hate it
By 9999 on Dec 19, 2020
Dwarf hamsters refuse to eat this crap. It is not a good product.
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Delicious food
By Brookeandthe7hams on Nov 4, 2020
My three ham hams love this food. It's nutritious and I think the pieces are cute.
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My two gerbils love this food!
By Courtney on Jul 22, 2020
I heard so many good thing's about this fed that i had to try it myself. My two girl gerbil were on a different fed when i first got them and didn't seem to like it very much... Once i changed to Oxbow fed they love it and eat every bit of it!
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It isn't nutritionally balanced
By gerbil22 on May 1, 2020
As many reviews already say, this food is not nutritionally balanced. It is probably not the worst thing you could use but it'ss definitely not ideal. I used it for my gerbil for a while and she did not eat it unless she was really hungry. I recommend a gerbil specific food or at least a good seed mix. I use Gerri Gerbil and pick out the fatty stuff for treats. Additionally, this food is boring and uninteresting. The bag says 5% treats but that is the animal equivalent of a "nutritionally balanced" meal blended together into a smoothie.
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Have Celiac? Don't use pellets for your hamster
By hamster2020 on Apr 20, 2020
This is the best pellet we found for our Syrian hamster. However if you have Celiac, don't use pellets for your hamster. It is dusty and you will get gluten from cross-contamination. Instead, ask your local animal clinic for suggestions on what to feed your hamster. Here is what we are doing for our Syrian hamster: 2x/day we offer vegetables in a food bowl (no iceberg lettuce, no avocado) - her favorites are kale, green leaf lettuce, and spinach. She also likes broccoli, carrot and sugar snap pea. Sprouts gave her an upset stomach (even though she liked the sprouts, commercial sprouts are often contaminated w/ bacteria so best to avoid). We leave raw oatmeal, pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, sesame This is the best pellet we found for our Syrian hamster. However if you have Celiac, don't use pellets for your hamster. It is dusty and you will get gluten from cross-contamination. Instead, ask your local animal clinic for suggestions on what to feed your hamster. Here is what we are doing for our Syrian hamster: 2x/day we offer vegetables in a food bowl (no iceberg lettuce, no avocado) - her favorites are kale, green leaf lettuce, and spinach. She also likes broccoli, carrot and sugar snap pea. Sprouts gave her an upset stomach (even though she liked the sprouts, commercial sprouts are often contaminated w/ bacteria so best to avoid). We leave raw oatmeal, pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, sesame seeds and sunflower seeds scattered in her cage for her to forage for (not in a food bowl). There is an empty food bowl in her cage, which she uses as a toilet (we clean it 2x/day). We occasionally offer Beech baby food (carrot or green bean) in a little bowl. 1x/wk we offer a tiny bit of protein (boiled egg white, or boiled chicken) and a tiny sliver of fruit (she likes raspberry. no citrus. apple seemed to give her upset stomach.). We put a tiny amount of unsalted, unsweetened natural peanut butter (no sugar) on her chew toys and pinecone to encourage chewing. We got her to stop chewing on the cage bars by placed a toilet paper roll through the bars of the location where she was chewing. Do not give the hamster any food that has sugar or salt added. Cheers … more