Creepy urate (wtf is this???)

[Luvyna]

I'd say it's potentially something they fed to the rats, then. Some rodent breeders feed dog kibble because it's cheap, & it often contains red or other dyes & chemicals known to be inappropriate for consumption by both rodents & snakes (their bodies cannot excrete it properly & it might have adverse health impacts at some point).

Or maybe they fed other stuff, who knows what? -because rats will eat most anything. For example, if you give rats a nearly-empty peanut butter jar to lick out, they'll do that, but they'll also chew off & eat the label, which would contain ink. So it could have been something accidentally fed, or intentionally fed, on the part of the rat-breeders, not realizing what could happen. Personally, I'd not buy their rats again out of an abundance of caution- I hope you haven't a bunch more already on hand.

I wouldn't be surprised if it was from the rodent breeder feeding the rats something unhealthy. It was the Arctic Mice brand of rats from Petsmart, thankfully I only bought a pack of two. I purchased them because the rats from my regular supplier went bad from being defrosted during transport when I was moving and the next rat delivery date was over two weeks away when my BP had already not eaten for around 18 days (I feed every 2-3 weeks because he is fully grown and when he was eating every 10-14 days he was getting a bit chubby).

Fortunately the rats from the regular supplier arrive this Wednesday and I won't be buying the Arctic Mice rats again. I suspect it was the food since that's the only variable that's changed and I've never seen any speckled urates before.