Mice feeding, two ????

[Batdad]

Two questions:

1) I've read that cheap dog food is good food for rats, is it also good for mice or should you stick with something like birdseed?

2) Does anyone have an ideas/pictures for a feed dispenser for mice instead of using a bowl. Which doesn’t hold enough to last very long and seems to be shaped like a toilet :rolleyes:

Any and all help appriceated:)

Bruce

[snakedude_03]

hey.. i think there has been soem debate whether dog food is good or not. Dog food contains alot of proteins and causes the rodent to become obese and very fatty and some owners perfer not to feed these to their snakes, some think it is totally fine. You can purchase rodent mix like mazuri's but those are quite more expensive to feed to your rodents. Some people had better resulting litter sizes with dog food and soem had better results with mazuri. And about the food dish, some people have used some funky bent in tank lids to feed thier rats and this way it wastes less food. I like the idea, but unfortunatly, i havnt tried it. I'm sorry im not that much of a help.

[Linds]

The nutritional imformation for Mazuri and low quality dog food is closely matched. I used to be part of the "dog food is for dogs, rat food is for rats" train of thought, but have since changed my ways when I looked in to it further. Since then, my litters have increased in size, it supports the females better (when they were fed Mazuri they became quite emaciated from constantly having litters), the babies grow quicker and have better weight to them as well. I just use 'Ol Roy dog food (walmart brand). Rats appear fine with it, the only drawback for using it with mice is that they get a bit greasy looking. If you can deal with them looking a lil greasy then no worries :) It doesn't mean they are any less nutritional. Another thing about dog food versus seed mixes is that rats and mice are omnivorous, the seed mixes do not really take that in to effect, whereas low quality dog food is suited to an omnivorous diet :) As for food, you can make a food hopper from hardware cloth and find a plact to mount it or hang it in the cage ;)

[Batdad]

Thanks for the info. What I would like to know is when you make a hopper do you make an opening at the bottom somewhere/somehow or do you just let them nibble at the food through the hardware cloth.And while I'm at it what size is best, 1/4"??:confused:

[Darlene]

There are handy feeders meant for rabbits, chinchillas & the like. These are like an upright box with a bottom spout/trough- like opening for food to come out. The opening usually isn't large enough to become a toilet. These feeders last my rabbits a few days. They are available in metal or plastic. They can be mounted inside or outside an enclosure.
There is another similar type for chicks. The food is kept in a large round cylinder that has an open trough all around the bottom rim. It, too, comes in metal or plastic. It also holds a few days worth. It can be set in the enclosure or hung up if there is a really bad toilet problem still happening. When hung it will swing & this makes it a very inconvenient toilet.
Both feeders are available at any farm/feed store such as Co-op or Purina. Some types of large bird feeders are similar & will also work. They aren't super-cheap, nor are they extremely expensive. They are, however, very worth the investment. I've had success with both types & keep both on hand.
Hope you can find them & have the same luck with them as I do. Dar.

[Jayson]

I have resently checked into this ol'roy dog food vs mazuri and found that if the lables are compared that they are not as similar as you are lead to believe there are alot more animal protiens in the dogs food. I personally have raised rats both ways (not ol'roy) dog food and mazuri and found that mazuri is by far the the better food for my rats. My females produce litters of 12-18 consistantly for more then a year straight. the only time i had problems with emaciated rats was due to watering problems back when i first began breeding. However i do on occation supplement with freash fruit and veggies.
everyone has diffrent opinions about what to feed there feeder rodents but i look at it like this, mazuri makes a lot of feed for many diffrent types of animals so i would asume that they have done nutritional reserch of the animals before they made the food. and lets face it dogs and rats naturally have very diffrent diets. Jason

[Lisa]

Super C dog food has done us well. We tried mainstay but our rats didn't do so well and our mice went canibalistic. The thing with dog food is to make sure it doesn't have any dyes or colour.

The ingreadients from our Super C dog food are: whole wheat flour, soybean meal, ground yellow corn, calcium carbonate, animal fat preserved with bha/bht, salt, calcium proionate, choline clhloride, ferrous sulfate, zinc oxide, di-alpha-tocopheryl acetate (vitamin E), thiamin mononitrate, sodium selenite, coper sulfate, cholecalciferol (vitamin D3), pyridoxine hydrochloride, calcium iodate, manganous oxide, retinyl acetate (vitamin a), nicotinic acid, calcium dd-pantothenate, menadione nicotinamide bisulfite (vitamin K3), biotin, viamin B12 suppliment, cobalt carbonate, folic acid, riboflavin.

typical analyses
crude protein 16.4%
crude fat 5.3%
moisture 11%
crude fiber 5%
crude ash 6.9%
Calcium 0.9%
phosphorus 0.7%
potassium 0.81%
sodium 0.3%
magnesium 0.34%
vitamin A 11500 IU/kg
vitamin D 800 IU/kg
vitamin E 50 IU/kg

so there isn't much animal protein in the stuff. both dogs (like their cousins the bear) and rats are omnivores though dogs probably get a bit more meat in the wild.

Can anyone post the ingredients off the mazurii packages (made by purina)?

[Lisa]

found the mazuri list on the mazuri site (www.mazuri.com)

Ingredients
Ground corn, dehulled soybean meal, cane molasses, animal fat preserved with BHA, wheat middlings, ground oats, dehydrated alfalfa meal, ground wheat, ground soybean hulls, dicalcium phosphate, fish meal, dried beet pulp, brewers dried yeast, wheat germ, dried whey, salt, corn gluten meal, calcium carbonate, DL-methionine, menadione dimethylpyrimidinol bisulfite (source of vitamin K), pyridoxine hydrochloride, choline chloride, soybean oil, L-lysine, dried yucca shidigera extract, cholecalciferol (source of vitamin D3), dl-alpha tocopheryl acetate (source of vitamin E), thiamin mononitrate, folic acid, biotin, calcium pantothenate, cyanocobalamin (source of vitamin B12), riboflavin, nicotinic acid, vitamin A acetate, manganous oxide, zinc oxide, ferrous carbonate, copper sulfate, zinc sulfate, calcium iodate, cobalt carbonate.


Crude protein not less than 16.0%
Crude fat not less than 6.0%
Crude fiber not more than 5.0%


that's for the 6F, now the ingredients aren't the same but they're close.