Effects of food quality...Watch your Protein

[MrLang]

Interesting comment on the hog feed. Any specific brand you advise or just look at ingredients and balance?

Appreciate the insight on BHA and Menandione.

[KING JAMES]

The Kents stuff I posted a link to is made as a hog feed.
They realized people were buying it as rodent food so they started marking it as such. The bags it is in is the same as the hog feed bags. The only difference is that they changed the tag on the bag to say rodent diet instead of swine diet.

I know at-least in the area I was from most of the breeders used Kents and no noticeable issues.

I swear by it, I have been feeding it exclusively (other than treats to my "pet" rats) for going on two years now and have not had any problems.

[purple python]

Purple python, you might try offering seeds and oats and whole grain cheerios as treats rather than fruits and veggies. Rats and mice rarely eat fruits and vegetables naturally, and most can have minor negative effects (bloating, diarrhea) on their digestive systems (few can have very bad effects, but none are especially good for rats and mice).

Whole grain cheerios (the sugar free kind) are a real big hit with most rodents!
I would also recomend not using a vegetarian dog treat, but going with a natural freeze dried chicken kind instead (if you're looking for something natural). The meat is healthy for them, and they really like them.
The mealworms are definitely good for them! Crickets are fun too, it's great to see the rodents turn into wild animals and chase crickets around!

Thanks Rhasputin, I only offer produce once a week and usually greens, carrots or apple. Freeze dried chicken is a wonderful idea! I just picked some up, and it's cut into nice small servings, my breeders loved it. For the most part, prefer to keep my rats on primarily a vegetarian diet simply because I don't trust a lot of the animal products in feeds. But thank you for the recommendation, I will definitely make it part of my feeding schedule.


If I didn't have such an irrational hate for crickets, it could be fun to offer some up.

I use Mazuri 6F for my rodents. I don't have a huge colony yet so my numbers of comparison are pretty small, but I feed this to all my rats. For my pregnant and nursing moms, I also supplement with Pedigree Large Breed dog food for some supplemental protein. The others do not receive the dog food. Once I wean my babies, they no longer receive the dog food either. My females stay of good body weight after they delivery and pups grow large and fast. Out of five litters that I've had born, I've lost no pups after delivery. My holdback rats are also growing nicely and don't appear to be obese or have any health problems.

That's an interesting concept and sounds effective. I think if I switch to 6F or a lower protein percentage I will try something similar to make sure the breeders are getting the amounts they need. How is the smell with Mazuri 6F? Another thought I had was that higher protein = stinkier rats. Since switching to Harlan the smell has greatly reduced!

[BHReptiles]

I have a 2.7 group + babies. I clean every 5 days and I don't notice an odor at all

[kc261]

I recently changed from Mazuri 6F to Native Earth (which is Harland Teklad 18%). I'm not 100% sure I'm going to stick with the change yet. My rats seem equally as healthy, but it seems to me that there is more odor. Perhaps because of the higher protein. Perhaps because the Mazuri adds yucca which is supposed to help control ammonia odors. Perhaps just because I made the change around when the weather warmed up and that always makes odors more noticable. I've decided to try some Sweet PDZ to see how much that helps. Too soon to know about that yet.

King James, I'm curious about the Kent food. Since you say it is exactly the same as the hog food, just with a different label, does that mean it is the same little pellets that most hog food is? Or is it bigger pellets that can be fed through 1/2" hardware cloth without just falling through?

[Rhasputin]

The Kents stuff I posted a link to is made as a hog feed.

Now that's interesting!

[kc261]

Interesting comment on the hog feed. Any specific brand you advise or just look at ingredients and balance?

Many hog feeds are medicated. Avoid those. I believe they are required to label it as medicated, but at least in years past it was sometimes in kinda fine print, so do actually read the label. Beyond that, I'd just do what you said...look at the ingredients & nutritional info.

[Rhasputin]

The Purina stuff always says medicated in large print.

[Kat_Dog]

Every brand of hog feed I've seen wrote MEDICATED in huge letters and had a different colored label than non medicated.

Also, I was looking at hog feeds and something struck me as odd. A brand they sell near me has "blood meal" in it. What's with that? Is it okay for rats? o.o

[Rhasputin]

It is okay for rats. I would prefer the label say what -kind- of blood they're using, but it's likely fine. It's almost certainly cow or pig blood.