I've been looking around at the different diets that people use for their mice, and I have hit a few differences. I know everyone feeds something different, I'm just curious why.

The Mazuri lab block seems to be a pretty commonly accepted feed. The only one I had ever heard of was the 6f, until I went to their site. They actually recommend the 9f for "high producing mice". Why isn't this used? Lack of availability? Or price?

The Mazuri mouse and rat food has much more protein (23% instead of 16%) than the lab blocks. What does the protein levels effect? Is it better to have more, or less, for a colony?

I'm just looking for any info, so I can tighten the food search a bit. I don't know that I'm going to be able to get anything of any real quality here in town, so when I do go out of town, I'd like to have an idea of what I'm looking for. So far I'm looking for a protein content of about 20% and fat at about 6-10%.

Any foods to just stay away from?