I guess the proper term for monkey balls would be monkey cereal balls but that’s not what we call them in our house. They’re a pretty healthy snack but can also be fed as part of their main diet. Creativity is key when creating monkey balls. As long as you have the two main ingredient (baby formula and baby cereal) in your mix, you’re golden! I used to feed monkey balls to my marmosets and now my capuchin and they truly enjoy it. I actually got the original recipe (similar to mine but not as creative) from one of the largest zoos in Belgium. They used to feed these monkey balls to all their primates.
Key Ingredients:
Infant Formula (I use Parent’s Choice – Infant Formula with Iron)
Baby Cereal (I use Gerber – Mixed Grain)
Optional Ingredients:
Primate Dry Diet (I use Zupreem Primate Dry – crushed up)
Cereal (I use Great Grains Cereal)
Raisins (cut up in very fine pieces)
Honey
Mix the Infant Formula with water as directed on the box (in my case 2 oz of water with one 1 scoop of milk powder). Once powder is completely dissolved, add baby cereal to the mix. Add as much baby cereal until you get a solid mix.
Now you get start adding your optional ingredients like crushed up primate dry diet (also called monkey biscuits or monkey chow), cereal, a little bit of honey, and raisins. As I mentioned, here is where you can truly be original. I would recommend to mix things your monkey really likes so he’ll also eat the things he might not like as much. Many primate owners often have a hard time feeding primate biscuits so adding them to this mix will make sure he won’t realize he’s eating this food after all.
Mix everything thoroughly and start rolling your monkey balls. I usually feed my capuchin these monkey balls as part of his daily diet the day I made them plus the two following days after I discard the rest.
Send us your primate recipes so we can share them with primate owners around the world!