thoughts?

[ADEE]

on snacks (fruits, exc) what do you (and dont you) give to the rats?
what about "toys" right now we have a pvc tube with a 90 attached to it. i ran an old shirt of our son through it (like the pvc has arms) and the rats hang out in the tube and shirt all day long! i wasnt sure abot other toys for them.. ideas?

please list the things you do/dont feed them and toys you have in your enclosures

how often do you clean their enclosures? right now ours isnt bad but i dont want it to get that way either

where did you get the lab blocks? were going to put together our own food (thanks to sticky!) and wasnt sure where to find them

[frankykeno]

on snacks (fruits, exc) what do you (and dont you) give to the rats?

Here's a great link on good and not so good human foods for rats.....

http://www.ratnutrition.com/suppleme...forbiddenfoods

I keep an old icecream bucket in the fridge marked RAT FOOD and they get basically any dinner scraps. I usually just feed whatever's in their bucket to the whole colony 2x a week. They love hard boiled eggs...loads of fun and some great chewing on the shells and lovely protein for them (sometimes you have to crack the egg a bit the first time so they get the idea). Old bread dipped in a bit of olive oil is a huge treat around here (I keep a bread bag and just toss anything breadlike in there). Left over pb&j sammies are a favorite hand fed treat of our 6 male breeder rats - spoiled brats will stand up in a line while my husband Mike shares out the treat. The occasional snack of live crickets or meal worms is appreciated. You can take an empty toilet paper tube, put live prey in there and pinch down the ends. Loads of fun for the ratties to "hunt". Frozen peas are a great summer time hot weather treat...sort of rattie icecream. Avoid iceberg lettuce...a total waste of time to eat and it can give them the runs. Bones especially chicken bones are a very good treat....helps keep those teeth worn down. M & M's are okay...chocolate in small amounts is okay for rats...they make a nice hand treat or an addition to their dry food occasionally.

what about "toys" right now we have a pvc tube with a 90 attached to it. i ran an old shirt of our son through it (like the pvc has arms) and the rats hang out in the tube and shirt all day long! i wasnt sure abot other toys for them.. ideas?

Pretty much anything a parrot can't destroy but those parrot toys are pricey! You can go buy some plain cotton rope (not synthetic) and create knotted rope toys to hang or even make a rope sort of bridge. Rats are incredily good climbers and have great balance to cross ropes. Heavy shop rags or old blue jeans can be cut and hung for rat hammocks. They eventually chew them up but it's fun while it lasts LOL. Any toys you give them must either be really chew proof or rat safe as they can and will chew and swallow things they shouldn't. Do a google search on "pet rat toys", likely you'll come up with things you could replicate yourself.

how often do you clean their enclosures? right now ours isnt bad but i dont want it to get that way either

On Sunday they get a thorough enclosure dump and wipe out then fresh bedding. On Wednesday I just scoop any obvious toilet area and toss in a few handfuls of fresh bedding. Adding a few drops of vanilla to their water bottle helps with urine smells (especially with males).

where did you get the lab blocks? were going to put together our own food (thanks to sticky!) and wasnt sure where to find them

I buy ours in bulk from a good pet store and just mix it into my dry food mix bucket. Then I follow Becky's suggestion but also add in whatever dry stuff looks interesting and is on sale that week or is leftover in my kitchen pantry. I haunt the discontinued dry goods bin at the grocery store LOL or Aldi's grocery store (discount place) for great deals on cereals.

Watch for seasonal sales too. Right after Thanksgiving I bought bags of lovely cranberries for next to nothing. Tossed them in the freezer and the rats had frozen handfuls for treats for months afterwards. One of the side benefits of owning rats is they will clean up much of your food that would otherwise end up in your garbage can.

[ADEE]

great suggestions!!! thanks so much, i have been doing a bit of reading on that afrma.org website for ideas.

[SarahMB]

I just wanted to add, I recently learned that rats can get some sort of mouth infection from mold on raw ears of corn. So nuke any raw corn first, the rats loves that stuff like nothing I've ever seen.

[Snikt228]

My rats love those blue yogurt drop things for rats. I clean the cage about once a week

[Alice]

Thanks for the great tips Jo!

[frankykeno]

No problem! A happy breeder makes Jo more feeders! LOL

[littleindiangirl]

I keep frozen blueberries around for them. lol, they go crazy, and turn blue too. Lol, good times.

[Argentra]

My girls love yogurt drops in blueberry and strawberry (they run off with them and hide while they're eating...too cute), small pieces of fresh fruit such as nectarines, strawberries, cherries, grapes, raspberries, and such, cooked pasta pieces, and whatever nice scraps of meat we may have from dinner.
Their main diet is a dry mix of lab block, small amounts of commercial rat food (Nutriphase), and this diet mix from the breeder I got them from:
http://www.freewebs.com/camarattery/ratdiets.htm

As for toys, as Jo said anything for parrots or ferrets is good for rats. I have a great contact for cheap ferret toys, so that's what I give my girls: hammocks, tunnels, hanging 'houses'... I also give them wooden houses and hanging toys for gnawing. Making rat toys yourself is quite easy, just make sure the fabric you use is not chemically treated, sturdy, and you won't mind it being chewed up

[SatanicIntention]

Please don't use citrus fruits, it can cause kidney failure in rats.