A blessing to my rat colony

[angllady2]

Mazuri is a popular rodent food. Many breeders feed it to their rats and mice. I do myself. If you are fortunate enough to have a local mom and pop type pet store, you can buy from them. Otherwise it can be ordered online and shipped to you. I recommend mazuri food, it's always been good for me and my stock. Some people have better results with other brands, and a few will tell you that you can get by with dog food or hog feed. With me, it's a matter of getting out of my feeders what I put into them. I've had experience with feeders from people who feed whatever is cheap, like dog food, monkey biscuits and hog feed, but the difference in quality is plainly apparent. I'm not trying to put down people who use other feeds, but in my experience you can tell the difference between those fed a cheap diet of dog food or hog feed, and one's fed a more costly diet of good rodent block.

I have a number of people who buy excess stock from me that I don't feed my own animals. And they will only buy from me. The quality of my animals is so much higher than what is available from other breeders or even pet stores, they won't buy from anyone else unless I don't have any available. They even tell me their snakes can tell the difference and many will only eat my animals and will fast if offered rodents from another source. My snakes are the same way. Once or twice in the last few months I've had to buy a few feeders when my stock was low, but I learned the hard way my snakes won't touch feeders from someone else. I ended up making breeding stock of a few feeders I bought, and having to give away the rest.

Mazuri here is fairly reasonably priced. I can get a 50 pound bag of 6F, which is the standard formula rodent block, for $28 from my local small mom and pop pet store. I also see it at reptile shows now and then for $24 - $30 for 50 pounds. You can also buy it from some feed stores, and if they don't carry it, many will be agreeable to ordering it if they know people will buy it. It can also be purchased in smaller bags from some feed stores and occasionally small pet shops. I've seen it in as small as 6 pound bags if you only have a few animals. However, if stored in 5 gallon buckets with lids, a 50 pound bag will stay good for weeks or even months. Mazuri also makes a breeding specific formula for rodents which I believe is called 9F, but I've tried both and really cannot tell a difference in the two, so it's hard to justify spending the extra money on the breeding formula.

I hope this helps you to make a decision.

Gale