best commercial rat food?

[justinO]

Hello.. I'm just wondering which feed is the "best" for their rodents? we have been using "lab diet" "lab chow" and just recently i picked up a few bags of Mazuri.. I'm just curious as to people's opinions. so far, we've not noticed any difference between the various rodent feeds.

We originally started on dog food, but noticed lots of litter cannibilism, which is why we switched to a proper rat food.

[The Green Mile]

I have great sucess with Purnia Rat Chow 50Lbs 24.00.
I also supplement with veggies stuff.

Cheers
brian

[Classic]

High energy dog food and suppliments of veggies and table scraps. and o yeah, frozen weiners.

Brian

[Smulkin]

Hehe, seriously? Frozen weinorz?

[mykee]

I stick to good 'ol Mazuri 6F. I have had great success with it, and I won't feed my rats anything but. You have chosen wisely Justin-san.

[justinO]

ha ha ha.. good good. We've been exceptionally happy using the lab quality food. I just picked up mazuri because that's what the guy brought to me when i ordered rat food :D..

is there really any difference between mazuri, lab diet and the other one or is it just a brand name? the ingredients seem similar.

cheers :)

Justin

[mykee]

My guess is that any of the high quality lab diets are pretty similar, but even if you did happen to choose the crappiest lab diet, (which I doubt) it's still better than any dog food in my opinion.

[Classic]

How can a comparity be made against a dog food that champion dog breeders use? What is that special ingredient that makes the $50/bag block better than the $25/bag dog food. Think about it. A quality dog food is made for a medium/large mammal that is tried and tested by thousands of dog breeders and owners all over the world. A mixture of veggies and meats. The only real difference is the cost. If there were few dog breeders as rodent breeders, the price of dog food would be $50/bag also.
Look at the ingredients in a quality dog food and tell me something that a rat food has that a dog food doesent? Well, maybe i could fall into the trap with the high end dog food that costs $50/bag just because it has "gormet" written on the side of the packaging. The only difference between the two is that dog food will give your rat a shinyer coat.
Has anyone ever produced any scientific evidence that any block is better than dog food? Or is it just the personal opinion of a few peeps that breed rodents and the rest are just brainwashed and afraid to say otherwise?
No one here can honestly say that dog food is inferior to block. If you have solid proof, i'd like to hear it. Let's shut down a few coincidences before they are thrown out as factual.
Almost all rats and mice canibalize for lots of reasons and you cant tell me that you can blame it feeding them dog food. LOL!
My rodents fair the same on dog food as when they were on block. O wait a mnute...there is a a difference...i have and extra $30 in my pocket and the same amount of healthy offspring.
Go Figure?
If anything, with a suppliment of meats and veggies from leftovers, dog food would be superior. But i have no proof of that!
Brian
HighWaterHerps

[BoidKeeper]

I've been raising rats for over two years now on the cheapest dog food I can find, special diner. I don't buy it because it's the cheapest I buy it cause it is all vegtable protein. The rats do great and the snakes I raise on it...well just check my gallery to see what it does for my snakes. Who else has 2003 corns eating Fuzzie rats right now? My rats grow fast and so do my snakes.
Cheers,
Trevor

[Lisa]

I use super c dogfood for pretty much the same reason as Trevor. I read the ingreadients and guess what, they're pretty much the same as mazuri/purina lab chow... what's purina known for? DOG FOOD. Who owns mazuri? Purina. you probably can do the math...

look at the size of this guy.
http://klreptiles.com/bigbits.jpg

[Jayson]

Lisa Just because you have a large rat, dont mean the food you are feeding is superior. animal size is based on genetics not food brand.
I have many extreamly large rats as well and i use mazuri 6f. I chose to use mazuri because it was made for rats by people who actually did reseach on a rats nutritional needs. I am not saying that there is not a dog food brand out there that is better, I am just saying that i personally am not able to read a lable and say which is better. They may all have the same ingredience but that dont make it the same. The recipe(sp)? is what you need.

[BoidKeeper]

The way I look at it is like this, these are rats, not race horses. If it is good enough for dogs then it's good enough for rats. Not that I would ever feed the brand of dog food I feed to my rats to my golden retriver or chocolate lab mind you but it's still good enough for dogs so it's more then good enough for rats.
Cheers,
Trevor

[mykee]

With that same reasoning, if it's good enough for cats, is it good enough for rats? Lets arbitrarily pick other animals that are compared to rats....mice, is mouse food good enough for rats? Call me stupid, but I feel that dog food should be fed to dogs, cat food should be fed to cats, and (god forbid) rat food be fed to rats. I could probably keep my dog alive on bologna and Fruit-Loops, but would I? The answer to that one is an implicit NO. I care enough about the future health of my dog to feed her a premium holistic dog food. I guess there are those who feed their dogs Purina dog food, and those who feed their dogs a premium dog food. The same is true of rats owners. Plain and simple. Let's all just finally agree to disagree.

[justinO]

heh heh heh.. i didn't realize that my question would open up a can of worms! I suppose if whatever you feed your rats works to YOUR satisfaction and you are happy with the results, then that is all that matters!

it has been an interesting discussion.

:)

Justin

[sapphire_moon]

BoidKeeper:

I don't breed, but I have a 2003 (august 14th, 2003 :) ) corn that eats 2wk old rats once about every 7-9 days (whenever she starts looking). About as big around as a quarter (U.S) and about 2-3 months away from being 1yr old (when she turns 1yr old I plan on putting her on a every 2 wks feeding scheduele)


I am finding that my rats are actually getting thin on rat food (even though they are being supplemented with other foods like fruits, veggies, eggs, and meats) And they aren't even breeding yet! (I stopped for a while, to many!).

Yet while they were breeding I was using ol roy bites and bones and they were "plump" but not over weight, shiny coats, healthy liters, big babies that grew at a good rate.

Rats eat just about anything, and their diet can vary, whether you are giving a rat block, or cheap dog food (do they even have meat in the rat blocks?) they will probably do fine on either one.

[HeatherK]

Originally posted by sapphire_moon
Rats eat just about anything, and their diet can vary, whether you are giving a rat block, or cheap dog food (do they even have meat in the rat blocks?) they will probably do fine on either one.

Rats (and mice) are very adaptable animals. This is why they are so populated and prolific in the wild, and viewed as such a pest and hard to get rid of. They are scavengers and can populate various different areas with less than ideal conditions, unlike many other animals that do require certain food sources and environments to survive.

With pet rats (I don't breed feeders) I personally use rodent chow as a staple for convenience, adding in extra foods here and there for any nutritional benefit, variety, and interest. Rats would not usually be eating the same thing always in the wild, just whatever they find really, however they will still do fine on the lab diets as they are nutritionally complete (just boring).

[BoidKeeper]

Oh don't get me wrong I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with feeding rats a special rat diet. All I'm saying is that for two years I've great success feeding vegtable based protein dog food to my rats and in turn great success raising my snakes on those rats. All I'ma saying is that cheap dog food made with vegtables works so why not save some money and use it. And I'm not just talking about surving on it I'm talking about thriving on it. There is a list of reasons why I wouldn't use cat food and I'm sure you know them your self.
As for what I feed Louie, I hope you would give enough credit to realize he and my golden get premium dog food, nothing I would ever feed to rats that's for sure! lol
Cheers,
Trevor

[Stockwell]

Mazuri is made by Purina, for those that are unsure. Like everything else its been abbreviated to PMI (purina mills internation)
I've always used the Purina lab chows.. It was called "checkers" many years ago, and then there was 5015, which I used for years, and then we noticed Americans were using Mazuri 6F, which was cheaper and a breeder friend of mine asked Ren if he could bring some in...and for years now, Ren has been selling Mazuri.

Brian, Mazuri 6F is only 20bucks a bag at Rens.
If it were 50, I'd probably not be using it.
All the various PMI feeds are located here on
Rens website for anyone that wants to dig into the ingredients of all the various types.
Its actually pretty mind blowing all the feeds that PMI makes... They have tortoise chow, flamingo chow,Moose and Zebra chow even shark chow... I was in there today, and a woman was buying "Mini pig chow" Its wild, all the Mazuri chows!
Just click on Mazuri once you're in Rens site
http://www.rensfeed.com/

[justinO]

yes.. ren's is where i've picked up all my various rat diets..

I thought purina made the "lab diet" and mazuri was just a competitor... i find it odd that PMI would make two products, under different names that are in the same market. thank you for clearing that up. I suppose it makes good business sense for PMI.

cheers,

Justin

[Vanan]

I've been feeding Noname brand "SuperStore" Brand Special dinner and have been having no problems.

[Lisa]

Originally posted by Jayson
Lisa Just because you have a large rat, dont mean the food you are feeding is superior. animal size is based on genetics not food brand.
I have many extreamly large rats as well and i use mazuri 6f. I chose to use mazuri because it was made for rats by people who actually did reseach on a rats nutritional needs. I am not saying that there is not a dog food brand out there that is better, I am just saying that i personally am not able to read a lable and say which is better. They may all have the same ingredience but that dont make it the same. The recipe(sp)? is what you need.

Genetics are important but so is nutrition. You can have all the best genetics in the world but if the animal is malnurished it will not grow to it's full potentiel. You don't need to know the exact recipe to know whether something contains harmful ingreadients or not and comparing the nutrition chart is also another tool in making an informed decision on what's in the bag. If the ingredients are the same then it's a good chance nutrition will be similar.

I'm not saying that mazuri is any worse then dogfood, I'm saying that the dog food I use provides good nutrition for my rats at a price better then what mazuri costs from ren's feeds... I pay $0.69 per kilo where a 50 pound bag of mazuri is $0.88 a kilo.

The convience of picking up the food @ the local grocery store instead of driving to ren's feed is also a bonus. I inquired into the price of mazuri/purina lab blocks around here and the cheapest I could find them for around here was $30 a bag.

[Classic]

I would definately use a rat food that had a responsible price.
I've actually decided to drop the rodent production and begin purchasing from some lucky rodent breeder in the ottawa area.
The time spent raising the rodents takes away from the snakes.
The cost of raising rodents and buying bulk feeders will be comparitive when the time factor is added to the equation. I've been refered to a rodent breeder that can fill my needs and i think i will go that route. I will probably keep one or two colonies around but no more than that.
Is Mazuri 6F availible in the Ottawa area?

Brian

[mykee]

Just because a rat is big, does not mean it is eating nutritious food. I'm larger than the average guy, which by your logic would mena I'm healthier? Far from eat, I eat crap 75% of the time. LEt me put it this way and leave it at that. I feed my rats Mazuri 6F as I'm sure all of you are aware, as I chime in on EVERY discussion about rat food. If you were to two rats; one of mine, fed Mazuri and a pet store rat. Eyeball the size at a weanling. My weanling (the identical size of a pet store weanling) will weigh 30-50% MORE than that pet store rat at the same size.
Trevor; I hope you didn't think that I was fingering you as one of those "grocery-store dog food feeders". I'm pretty sure that you feed your two dogs premium food, and I apologize if you felt pointed-out.

[annieb_mice]

(Looks at the previous posts on this thread)
Hmmmm.... should I get involved in this or not.... Decisions... decisions....
(thinks a few moments then shakes her head)
I think .... not! LOL!
It's interesting to see what people feed their animals... and the reasons why. I'm happy with the diet I chose to feed mine.
Take care
Annie B. <:3 )~~