General 2 year old Critical Care powder still good?

[Kelly9]

My girl is not eating like she should and I would like to give her Critical Care tonight to make sure she has enough to eat until we get to the vet tomorrow. She won't eat the Critical Care, but it is two years old. I remember it being more green, where this stuff is now more light brown. Is it still good to give her?

 

[bpatters]

It's probably ok. The vitamin C may not be as strong as when it was fresh, but many of the other vitamins and all of the minerals should be ok. It won't hurt her, although it may not help her as much as it should. But the calories in it should help with making sure she's getting enough to eat.

 

[SquigglyPigs]

I contacted Oxbow about this last month. They told me that unopened Critical Care is good for 2 years (there should be an expiration date on your package). I'm sure it's still safe - it probably just loses vitamin C potency as bpatters said. Once it has been opened, you are supposed to use it within 3 weeks.

 

[Fay]

I read somewhere that if you put the unopened pack in the freezer it should stay good a very long time, possibly a guinea pigs entire life span. So, I'm curious now about whether that is true or not. Would the vitamins in it stay intact? Do you happen to know @bpatters ?

 

[bpatters]

Maybe. Some vitamins are fairly volatile, such as unstabilized vitamin C. Others are not. It would depend on which vitamins are in the mix, how they're compounded, etc. I'm sure the cold temperatures would slow things down, but by how much, I don't know.

 

[Kelly9]

As far as palatability goes, the old stuff was NOT liked. Mouse gobbled up the fresh critical care and I had to force the old stuff into her.