my first keeper

[jben]

I just read through your whole thread and realized you had a food debate going on I wanted to add that I feed the same Mazuri, but I also offer Purina Dog Chow at all times. I used to only give it to the prego/nursing moms, but I give it to everyone now. I felt bad for the cute little boy rats I've been feeding Purina for 2 years now with no issues. In fact I have one male that is 3 years old and one female that is 3 years old. The rest are under a year. Those two were the only ones from my last colony that didn't get wiped out from some **** pet store disease.

Some people say it's bad to give them dog food because they aren't "meat eaters", although I would like to point out they are omnivores Anyway.... Other people say to only feed high quality dog food, well that does have meat in it. Long story short, Purina is not high quality dog for for those who think it is, but it's a good rat food addition! The first five ingredients are grains and by-products=bones/feathers/feet/heads of chickens all blended up. Lovely I know, but that's your chicken bones I would never feed that crap to my dogs, but to rats, sure! It's funny because once they pick out all the dog food they beg me for more. It took me forever to figure out what they were asking me for, but that was it!

Thanks Stephanie,
I have been thinking alot about their diet, and have been adding more scraps to their diet. Gary (suzuki) is right, that litter shown was very small compared to my first one, i'm having second thoughts on keeping the holdback female, she's so small for her age, she'll be 4 weeks on monday and she's only 25g, i fed off her siblings. the first litter i had were about 45g by the 3rd week, but the second litter(pics on this thread) were not with their mom, i took them away from their mom and placed them with the mom that had the first litter so that could be the reason why they were so small. i will start adding dog food to their diet. i know all about dog chow, we had a dog and would never feed her that crap. Thank you so much for your advice.