dog food and breeding rats

[Deltaball]

The type of dog food makes all the difference. That premium stuff you used was no doubt excellent for dogs, but as you discovered, a killer food for rats, too high in protein. My females average 12-16+ pups per litter and I have been using cheap low protein dog food as a base food source for 5 years and never had any problems.

I do supplement with table scraps such as chicken and meat bones and have discovered that rats love mouse pinkies, fuzzies and hoppers. Any left over mice on snake feeding day goes to the rats and not the trash can. That is their only additional source of protein.

[Deltaball]

still having deaths. 1 to 3 a day. hoping to get it under control. ive switched to doggy bag. of course I have sneezing rats now. ill check on them and everyone appears to be in good shape. come back 12 hours later and usually have 1 or 2 that has just fell over dead.

Sneezing could be an allergic reaction to their bedding, especially certain types of wood shavings. Or could be bad ventilation with sneezing cause by a reaction to the build up of uric acid fumes and if a ventilation problem, then the dropping dead could be due to a build up of carbon monoxide/dioxide in their tanks and/or from heat stroke if the tank temps are getting too high due to poor ventilation.

Generally, toxicity poisoning and illness display symptoms in rats or mice prior to death, such as listlessness, hunching up, puffed up fur, inflammation of the eyes, funny walk, inactivity, etc.
For otherwise healthy appearing rats to just randomly drop dead with no apparent symptoms is very disturbing and points to an environmental issue and not poisoning or illness.