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Most people think its wierd that I keep my rats... but my boys are sooooooooooooooooo cute They are white with cappachino colored hoods and are rather fluffy since the breeder who gave them to me had bred them for show (Their daddy was rather fluffy too) Does anyone else keep these facinating critters?

Also, if you keep them what do you feed them? I have been working on a special blend of food for them and am always looking for pointers....

1 Bag of Rat/Mouse food (over the counter, comprised of small seeds and ratblock)
1/4 lbs of hamster food (the kind with flaverfull bits- you buy in bulk)
2/3 lbs of Dried Fruit and Nut Mix for Small Rodents (again bulk and is mostly dried pieces of fruit)
1/4 lbs of Rodent Block (Bulk food, not very flaverful, but the rats like to kind of knaw on the pieces)
1 Cup of Puffed wheat
1/2 Cup of peanuts (I also give them nuts occasionally as treats to help with thier teeth)
1/2 cup of sunflower seeds


^_^

Inky

I don't keep rats (Mom would never let me because of a bad experience she had with them when she was a kid), but that diet sounds like it's pretty high in calories and fat. If you start having problems with your rats getting overweight, limit the amount of that food you give them and provide them with some hay to chew on. (Just took an exam that was largely on exotic animal nutrition).

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You might want to go with gerbil instead of hamster food. Lower protein and fat which would balance the high fat of the nuts and sunflower seeds. Gerri gerbil is the best with a good mix of high quality ingredients. Sunseed subscription would be my 2nd choice. Another good ingredient is a small amount of flaxseed. No more than 1/4th cup for the whole mix. Between sunflowers and flaxseed you have a full range of vitamins and minerals. It also has been shown to help prevent joint problems like arthritis and improve coat quality due to the omega 3 fatty acids. Since sunflowers and peanuts are both high in omega 6 it makes a perfect complement. You want to try for a nearly 2:1 ratio omega 6 to omega 3 but your mix is going to come out high. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12442909&dopt=Citation Walnuts would also be higher in omega 3. I slightly crack walnuts and then give them to my gerbils or degus to take apart and eat. I also give sunflower seeds or oil and flaxseed either whole or ground to pretty much every pet as a supplement to their diet. Gerbils, hamsters, guinea pigs, degus, horses.... It's improved their health better than any commercial vitamin/mineral supplement or complete food I've tried.

at the moment i have over 15 rats.
they're all in the freezer waiting for my snake

My mom will never let me have a pet again.....If i even ask for a rat......

My mom:
............walks in my room to clean the clothes, then sees a rat......

As you can see, not a pet friendly person.......only let me keep fish because its contained in water!




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Frozen Rats

Inky

Dani has had numerous rats... not to mention many other rodents and lagomorphs. They all get OXBOW. This is just about the best food that you can get, and there's no need to make a concoction of all sorts of other foods. Hay and fresh produce, of course, are at your discretion. Being in the pet food industry, especially the holistic end of it, she's very selective about what our animals get.

i never had rats but i had mice as long as your gentle and dont have sensetive fingers and dont mind the smell or cleaning the cage lots mice are cool but i traded mine for fish(good trade on my part)

33 gallon 7 neon tetras-5 platys-3 bleeding heart tetras-2 corys-1 rainbow shark-2 L83 gibby plecos