Quote Originally Posted by Bettacreek View Post
Not really. I'm pretty sure 18% is generally recommended for male rats and around 20% for females and hairless. 22% - 24% is actually pretty decent for a breeding/nursing female and a troop of wild babies. The males aren't as important in a colony to me, and I'd rather have my breeder females get adequate protein than not enough because I'm trying to cater to the males' level of protein. It just doesn't make sense to me to feed a diet tailored to male rats when your colony is mainly breeding females and their young.


How do you know the females are not getting enough protein when nursing? Have you had sick rats when they wean? Are they not maintaining weight very well? What are the effects from not feeding enough protein?

I'm asking because I take quite a bit of pride in my colony. I treat all the breeders like pets, and actually serve two different feeds for my breeders. I pay close attention to their mass at weaning, how the litters look, how many in a litter, how big they are at weaning... it's all very important to me.

I have great success with 16-18%. Now I read that somehow my rats are not being fed the proper amounts of protein?