What do you feed your rats?

[jacques92]

Hi
Yust wondering what everyone feed thier rats ?
expecially nursing rats

 

[hulloosenator]

dry dog food and water..... been doing it for 35 yrs..... rats thrive

table scraps...........especially bones , meat , chook carcass gets demolished in days.

 

[jacques92]

What sort of dog food if i may ask.
i use rat and mice mix but my females loose a lot of weight when nursing
and just wane make sure they get enough nutrition

 

[hulloosenator]

just the cheap no name brands at Bi-Lo , Coles , BigW.
i give them a bit of bread each day also.......
tonight we had roast chicken and salad for tea. - the rats had all the off cuts from preparing salad and had all the bones and the left over chicken carcass .... yummo - they loved it

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if you have nursing rats , then make sure there is food there all the time - they will eat when they need it , and stop when full. you need a feeder that you can fill up with dry dog food and might last 4 or 5 days till it needs topping up

 

[Senator358]

Biomare. Feed for pregnant horses, available at any feed store.

 

[ingie]

Cummins McMannus Rat and Mouse cubes (lab block style). It is made specifically for growing and breeding rats at thier full potential. My rats grew bigger, faster with healthier litters and bred more often, when I swapped off Biomare to this. I would never go back, it is not ideal for rats and while they will live and breed, you don't know what you could have until you swap.

Mixes are terrible nutrition for rats. Even dog food would be better, although not ideal. Any brand of lab block will be better than a pet shop mix or dog food. Friends of mine have experimented before raising members of the same litters on different diets, including pet store mixes, and the results were undeniable, rats raised on rat specific lab blocks vs mixes and Biomare had significantly different sizes and ones raised on lab blocks grew much bigger much faster.

 

[champagne]

I switched from bio mare to cummins for a 6 months and found no big difference so I switched back to bio mare. IMO cummins is just over priced branding.

 

[Wing_Nut]

Cummins McMannus Rat and Mouse cubes (lab block style). It is made specifically for growing and breeding rats at thier full potential. My rats grew bigger, faster with healthier litters and bred more often, when I swapped off Biomare to this. I would never go back, it is not ideal for rats and while they will live and breed, you don't know what you could have until you swap.

Mixes are terrible nutrition for rats. Even dog food would be better, although not ideal. Any brand of lab block will be better than a pet shop mix or dog food. Friends of mine have experimented before raising members of the same litters on different diets, including pet store mixes, and the results were undeniable, rats raised on rat specific lab blocks vs mixes and Biomare had significantly different sizes and ones raised on lab blocks grew much bigger much faster.

I agree with Ingie 100%, I feed my rats the same cubes and and I am extremely satisfied with the growth rate and just how cost effective the cubes are. Wastage is also very minimal.