Good diet for rats?

[Ciddian]

Hiyas all

I was wondering what you guys do in order to plump up your feeders and pet rats?

I have two males that are getting on the skinny side, but are also over two or so in age. Anything i can add to thier feeding schedual to help them gain some weight?

Is meat a good idea? I am feeding seeds, fruits and some cat dry cat food (i feed the cat food only when i fall short of seeds)

Once and a while they'll get crix or mealies when i have the spare cash. I also treat with a feeder fish or two.

Lemmie know and thanks heaps ^^

[Auskan]

Rats need protein as a regular part of their diet. They are omnivores, eating meat as well as fruit and veg. The cat food is okay, but is probably too high in certain things for regular feeding. If I were you, I would feed a diet that contains 50% dog food and 50% grains - eg a mix of rolled oats, cheerios, rice chex, puffed rice, puffed wheat etc, and go easy on the seed. A little seed is okay, but I would just give it for a treat - not a regular part of their diet. The crix, mealies, feeder fish etc on an occasional basis is also a good idea as a treat.

[mykee]

Mazuri 6F, it's actually RAT food.

[sapphire_moon]

Yes mykee we know this. put it in your sig and you won't have to repeat yourself

You could also feed crickets, which insects actually have more protine than meat (I think? i could be wrong, either way it is a good treat).

and just to be different. when I fed mazuri, my rats got skinny, sickly, low birth litters, high canabalisim, and very unhappy rats (happy rats give birth to bigger litters lol)



I already emailed you what I feed my rats, which INCLUDES dog food. :P
Sometimes rats don't do good on some foods.

[mykee]

Of the rat breeders I know of (who cumulatively produce over 10000 rats/month) feed Mazuri 6F and have nothing but good things to say about it.
Sapphire, no offense, but the three rats that you breed (and coincidentally removed from your sig) are hardly enough to provide an accurate "control".

[greenman1867]

I am a big Mazuri fan, I sometime treat with Bananna Chips and peanuts, Carrots and Green Beans. Mazuri is the staple though.

[Ciddian]

Thanks for the input guys!! I'll let you know how it goes

[honduranfreekk]

I must say since I have changed to Mazuri 6F I will never feed anything but Mazuri.I find all my rats do MUCH better on it.
They seem to produce more and look MUCH better and much more healthy.

Just mt 2 cents

Kelvin@Brigitte

[Asian Jon]

Hey Shawn, where do you buy your mazuri?? I can't find it anywhere.

[mykee]

Jon, Ren's in Oakville, and there's a little-known feed store up in Ayr...

[Mark]

I use mazuri for all my rats. It work's the best out of what I have tried and as I go threw 200-500lbs a month. I'm the one that gets the mazuri brought in for myself in ayr.

[sapphire_moon]

actually, I did NOT remove them from my sig ( what do you think another name for a rat colony is? lol) , and I do NOT breed them. They are strictly pets, But THOSE are a different story!

The ones I DID breed, when I did breed, I had 2 colonies, one of 1.4 and one of 1.2. When I switched them, they became sickly looking, canabalistic, etc...etc...

Like I said, it is ONLY my opinion. Just getting a different opinon out there, that while it may do so many breeders and millions of breeder rats good, my *few* didn't do well at all on it.

Maybe I got a bad bag, maybe I didn't. Just saying that just because someone elses rats do good on one diet, doesn't mean everyones will. Be it feeder/breeder or pet!

[Asian Jon]

Awesome, thanks a lot mykee. Looks like I will be visiting Ayr soon.

[Mark]

Jon: If you don't want to make the drive for nothing shoot me an E-mail before hand and I'll see what they have as they order it in for me and I buy it all. Worst come to worst you can have one of my bags.

[Asian Jon]

Cool, thanks Mark. I'll definitely let you know when I do. LOL you buy it all