Cheap Dog Food

I am going to go with hog grower. I know the feed store has that! I asked both stores if they could order the rodent diet and both not only said no but looked at me like I was insane (most people around here desperately wish to kill all rodents).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adam Chandler

I was able to find high quaility lab block online for $.38 a pound.

You can read about it in this thread: http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...n-rodent-block

---

Ooh... Looks like I may be switching! And right now the site says free shipping under 50#, and free shipping if you spend $59 or more. PLUS, a pop-up wants you to submit your email for an additional 15% OFF!!! Wow! You can't get much better than this deal.

I feed a dog food that I can only find at a store called Big R but for the life of me, I can not remember what it's called! I'm at work right now but I'll post it later on.

A word of caution though. Whatever you do, do not feed Ol Roy brand or Special Kitty brand food (Walmart brand food) to anything. Here is my reason why..

I was short on money one month last year and bought Ol Roy for my dogs and rats. I kept feeding it for awhile. Within 2 months about 6 of my rats had developed lumps. I was shocked because none of my colony had ever had an issue with tumors.

I immediately switched back to my original food and was talking to my sister about it. She freaked out because for years she had fed her cats, 4 of them, a mother and her 3 kittens, Special Kitty, and every one ended up with tumors when they were older. She only has one of those cats left and it doesn't have long to live.

It's been at least a year since switching my rats back to their original food and none have ever developed any lumps again.

Coincidence?

I figure since Norway rats only live a few years at most and cats live around 12 give or take, rats will show signs of a bad food like that in a much shorter time. Hence why labs use rodents in testing.

So just to be on the safe side, I wouldn't use those brands for anything.

When I was first getting ready to start breeding rats, I read on this forum somewhere about #40 Red in dog and cat food and to stay away from it. Find something that did not contain #40 Red. So when I was searching, I checked out both brands you mentioned... and if I do recall, and from what you have said happened to your rats, both contain #40 red.

I buy exrusion small animal blocks from local store i order it specially, and mix in some medium breed nutrience dog food. They get 4-1 ratio of small animal block to dog food. I keep 2 females per cage each cage gets about 10-16 bloacks aday with about 8 peices of dog food a day. The bag of blocks is about $65-70 its lastes for 12 rats about 5 months and the nutrience dog food has no corn its the pro biotic one with cranberrys and blueberrys 40lb bag cost 39.99.