Ad much as I have stood up for TSC doggy bag in the past, I guess I'm kind of on the fence about it now. I have 18 tubs of rats going (give or take) and 6 tubs of ASFs. We have had a real tough time with the ASFs and Becky has talked me out of freezing all of them more than once. Lol. These things have eaten their young like mad for us! They have also been slow producers. I realize they reproduce slower than a standard rat but these seem REALLY slow.

Anyway we were feeding all TSC until about 2 weeks ago. We even tried supplementing with peanuts which seemed to help but we were still having a lot of cannibalism. Then we were told to try mazuri. We have noticed an almost complete halt of the cannibalism. We went from like 3-4 dead a day to 2-3 in 2 weeks!!!

Now, we have also added shell corn at the suggestion of a local breeder but only the past 3-4 days so the cannibalism stopped before that.

I continue to feed TSC to my standard rats as I have had very little to almost no cannibalism in my rats but I am considering conducting a little experiment:

I'm thinking I may set up a new six tub rack with each tub being raised from weaning in groups of 1.5, 3 tubs being fed mazuri 6f and 3 tubs being fed TSC. Then I could track growth rate and eventual litter size from all involved females.

I have heard that mazuri yields bigger litters and the rats consume less which leads to less peeing and pooping which in turn would lead to less bedding use hence making mazuri cheaper in the long run.

Has anyone attempted this or had similar production increases and decreased food use with mazuri? Also, is there anything anyone would suggest doing differently in my experiment?

And lastly, what brands of rodent block are out there? The only one I have seen really is Mazuri but may be able to find a suitable substitute cheaper here in Ohio.