# feeding meerkats.....



## Saff (Jun 9, 2007)

ok i hope this dosnt end in the thread being closed and im not wanting to start a fight.
but recently i have been looking for new things to feed my meerkat after reading this artical Research puts Meerkats on low-fat diet to cut cholesterol
we currently feed her/him raw de-skined, de-limbed chicks, but after reading that artical i have decided to search for a nutritionally balanced pet food (like it said). could anyone recomend one? and is james wellbeloved a good option?
thanks for any advice,
saff


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## Saff (Jun 9, 2007)

bump!anyone???
saff


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## stubeanz (Mar 28, 2007)

meerkat diets are going to be an ongoing debate but yes in captivity they do have a higher colesterol mainly because in the wild they are feeding on insects and obviously with the odd vertebrate they find or vegetation. 
but in captivity we really cannot feed them that many insects, it would cost loads every day the ammount they get through. 
i personaly wouldnt feed them on a pelleted diet i no london zoo tried it / still do? but i would rather know what my meerkats are eating, wether the pellets are nutritionly correct or not.
1/. because you can montior how much meat/insects/vegetables they are getting. 
2/. feeding insects and hiding food in their enclosure encourages them to forage and hunt, so is enrichment for them.
hopefully other people will come forward and put their point across on diets aswel 

stu

ps saff im not trying to start an arguement cos i really do want to help but i hope you are mature enough to take the advise given this time and not just belive what you want to belive: victory:


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## Saff (Jun 9, 2007)

ok thanks. she does occasionnaly get to eat james wellbeloved cat biscuits, but as you said you dont rely know whats in them. im still interested in hearing what other people think.
saff


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## Saff (Jun 9, 2007)

lunch time bump!


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## Saff (Jun 9, 2007)

bump!


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## bosshogg (Nov 19, 2006)

i would ask Nerys and Rory there keep Meerkats and have lots of experience. if not why not do some google work i am sure there will be some hidden gem if you look for it. or ring the breeder you got him/her off see what there feed theres 
Clare


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## Saff (Jun 9, 2007)

thanks seached google but theres only a few bits of info, but ill as nerys or rory thanks.
Saff


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## JPReptiles (Dec 2, 2007)

The best thing for a meerkat is a varied balanced diet of insects,meat,fruit,veg and dairy products.

This is a few of the things my lot eat:

Crickets
Locust
Mealworm
Waxworm
Roaches

Chicks
Cooked chicken

Boiled eggs/raw
Rice 
Pasta

Cottage cheese
Natural yougut

Grapes
Strawberrys
Bannana
Apple
Melon

Khale
Cress
Cauliflower
Peas
Cucumber

If you are going to feed them on pellets try the james wellbeloved complete ferret diet.

Hope this helps.

John


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## Nerys (Apr 18, 2005)

ours get..

fruit and veg.. maybe about a handful of chopped a day.. basically a handful of the skunk mix.. which is any chopped veg apart from onion/leek, potato, asparagus..

i tend not too feed too much fruit or high sugar veg, they get banana as an occasional treat.. and melon as a rare treat.. 

they like yoghurt.. are not so keen on cottage cheese but will take it sometimes.. they get maybe a desert spoon between the two of them a day.. normally of live natural yoghurt tho..

they love fish and especially prawns.. this again they get as a treat.. they go bananas for large king prawns.. keep an eye on the supermarket reduced section for ones marked down else it costs a fortune lol.. they get whole raw fish.. normally cut into sections as they share fish night with the ferrets.. heads.. tails.. fins, skin.. i just rough cut the fish length ways into chunks and split it with them all.

eggs.. .. poached, scrambled, boiled, raw..basically in any format going bar fried

meat.. mine get a reasonable amount of this.. chicks.. chicken heads and guts and feet.. tripe.. cooked chicken or turkey.. rats, mice, gerbils, multis.. when i do rodent clean out, they get anything that had to be culled as i am going.. mice with tumors, rats with circle syndrome and so on.. occasionally they will get heart/liver/kidney but again thats an occasional food stuff, not an all the time one.

sometimes they will get pasta and beans (kidney, butter bean, adaki (spell?), etc etc) if its part of the skunk mix that night

as they free roam a large triple garage much of the time, they also catch their own dinner. any escapees from the rodent colony are normally sorted out by the meerkats when they come across them, and likewise any bugs and insects about that are big enough for them, get taken too.. i've seen them grab a live mouse and disappear behind their carpets with it.. they also like their mealworms, crickets and so on of course

i guess, they get offered a bit of everything, and from that take what they fancy, they could take ferret biscuit if they wanted, but never do, so tbh i don't really bother giving it to them specifically.. if given it in a bowl full of yoghurt, eggs, chicks, veggies and so on, it will be the one thing thats still there the next morning.

oh, they also scavange the binbags if i am doing clean outs.. so they could also be taking any amount of smalls grains and so on that the rodents have not eaten..










if i am working in there, the female comes out and stands near me.. and will come and investigate anything i hold out to her.. 











N


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## Nerys (Apr 18, 2005)

just thinking about it... saff.. how come you are feeding deskinned and delimbed chicks??? why not just feed the whole thing, then they get more balance in the food item?

both the ferrets, meerkats and kestrel, who are all fed whole dead prey, eat the lot. skin bones and flesh.. it makes a more balanded dinner item..

the young ferrets, at 4 weeks and with their eyes still shut.. i have found half way inside a chickens head before.. chewing on the back of the skull.. little monsters..

N


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## Saff (Jun 9, 2007)

i'll try her with full chicks and i might get a bit of ferret mix to put in a bowl so she has it there all the time or is there no point? we give her eggs every other week or so and she offten gets fruit (tomato, banana , carrot and so on) but ill start giving her that every day. oh and she'll always catch are escape crix and locusts.
thanks for the advice nerys,
Saff


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## Saff (Jun 9, 2007)

bump!


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## Saff (Jun 9, 2007)

bump!again....been feeding more fruit and veg and tryed prawn she loves em!!


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## taramasalata (Jul 23, 2008)

*Grapes kill meerkats*

Hiya,

Sorry to leap in unannounced. I have it on reliable information that grapes and raisins are lethal to meerkats in large doses. They also apparently kill skunks, dogs and lots of other carnivores for some reason. I only found this out when the man I bought my meerkat, Jack, from lost a couple of his after a grape binge. Whilst usually one grape is fine a handful can lead to the meerkat suffering sudden kidney failure from which it's almost impossible to recover, as a result I don't even risk having them in the house because Jack would probably find them when I was out. There's loads of research on grapes being lethal to dogs in large quantities, the deadly quantity for meerkats is probably smaller (since they are smaller animals) so this is well worth knowing.

I thought I'd mention it here incase anyone is looking for meerkat feeding information.

If anyone's interested Jack loves cauliflower, cucumber and olives. As a youngster he only ate raw meat (chicks mainly), a little beef and quail eggs but now he's fairly omnivorous by choice. He will eat a lot of fat given the chance though, I can see where the cholesterol issues come in. Also if he eats raw oily fish his fur smells fishy for days, he seems to excrete fish oils through his skin or something, whiffy. If the fish is cooked it's better.

Laura


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