vegetable nightmare!

[helen88uk]

Im really struggling to give my girls veggies...
I know that at least half of the diet (not inc protein) should be veg rather than fruit but they refuse to eat it.
Appearance wise they look healthy, their coats are a gorgeous colour, fur not at all separated, their tails are getting very bushy. I guess that a poor appearance comes from a poor diet and their is far from poor, just lacking in vegetables

I didn't want them to get fussy so i've made my veggie mix (which consisted of brocolli, sugar snap peas, sweet potato, butternut squash and carrot and i mixed a papaya in with that) and I've fed them that for the past 2 nights and each morning I've woken up to find it untouched.
Last night I gave in (worrying that they were starving themselves) and put one bowl of veggie mix and 1 bowl of a fruit mix that I made up. This morning the fruit bowl was licked clean (theres normally afew bits that theyv spat out left in the bowl but this one was spotless) but the veggies bowl hadn't been touched (except the Iams had gone that I put in with it)

I tried making up a fruit mix and adding sweet potato and butternut squash to that (but only little amounts as I didn't want them to turn their nose up at the whole thing and it all to go to waste) and they ate the majority of that. But are they missing out on a lot of vitamins and minerals from vegetables and possibly getting too much sugar from the fruit?

I'll try just adding 1 veg at a time in with their fruit (I guess a bit is better than none at all) and see if I can gradually increase it without them realizing ... this could take a long time tho)

How do you guys find feeding vegetables? Like I said I've tried the "you'll eat what your given" approach and they didn't eat for 2 days. I suppose if I kept doing that they would eventually have to eat but I can't bring myself to try lol. I know i'll give in before they will.

On the plus side, they'v started to eat crunchy Iams I'v started using them as a means of bonding as I think my girls have had enough yoggie treats for a while ... (A few weeks ago they were out of the cage for the night and I woke to find that they had found their treat bag, dragged it across the living room floor and scoffed a LOT of yoggie drops - I was very upset they left none for me!)

But any advice on feeding veg would be great they may be fine now but I don't want them suffering for it years down the line ...

[Amalthea]

You don't want to have a "veggie mix" and a "fruit mix"...  Their mixes should just be at least 50% veg.  So have their fruit and veg TOGETHER.

[melanied]

I am having the same trouble as you Helen, my gliders have a very sweet tooth and prefer the fruit to the veg, when i give them the veg and fruit mixed in together they dont eat it all, so I am trying a different range of veggies at the moment to see what goes down well.

Hopefully I'll get there in the end but any suggestions of fruits and veg that go well together would be great?

[helen88uk]

This is the 1st time i tried a veggie based mix. They had started to eat the fruit mix that had a little sweet potato and butternut squash mixed in so I thought I would try and up the veggie intake. I thought that they were supposed to have more veg than fruit? More like a 60/40 mix rather than 50/50.

But I struggle to even mix 1 veg in with the fruit sometimes. Maybe it is because no matter how tiny I cut the pieces it's always a little more lumpy than the fruit. Have any of you tried cooking the veg first? I know that they would lose nutrients but any are better than the none they're getting at the moment.

If I find a particular veg that they will eat I'll let ya know lol, atm im struggling x

[wjohnw]

The meal my girls get is a 50:50 mix. and it's always eaten well. The veg I tend to use most often are sweet potato and butternut squash with papaya and mango. All at equal wieghts (4 ounces each - total together is 1lb) this comes to a perfect ca:p ratio too.

[melanied]

Thanks I will try this!  I've been going for a 50/50 mix as well, as I have read so many different things. 

Gave them a treat of the yogurt drops tonight for the first time and they couldnt get those down quick enough.

[Emma9383]

Reading this has made me realise how lucky I am with my babies. I got them two weeks ago yesterday and other than not touching a thing for the first night, they've devoured their food since, and I've so far tried 4 of Tillie's fruit n veg mix recipes.
Try adding a teeny tiny bit of Eucalyptus (is that even how you spell it?lol) honey to the mix n see if they eat it with it being a little sweeter, therefore a little tastier for them. Then reduce it to nothing when they get used to it. I started mine off the 1st week with the recipes including butternut squash and sweet potato coz I thought they were less veggie veg, if that makes sense??  They ate it so this week I made up the ones with sugar snap peas in n next week I'll try one with carrot I think. Tillie's recipes are amazing n really help out mathmatical retards like me!!
I'm making two recipes a week, does anyone know if this is ok? I'm alternating the recipes each day n then trying 2 new ones eack week?