What are you feeding your food?

[BoidKeeper]

I'm just wondering what type of feed people who breed their own rats and mice are feeding them.
Thanks,
Trevor

[vanderkm]

We breeder feeder mice and gerbils for our own snakes and have between 100-200 rodents at any time. Both species are fed Nutriblocks complete chuncks free choice (pretty cheap if you get a pet store to order them in huge bags for you). We give wild bird seed and sunflower seed in small amounts daily.

The gerbils get additional hay. They are very wasteful of food, they chew the solid nutriblocks up just to chew, not actually to eat them.

The mice get milk bone dog cookies daily and fresh veggies once a week, the night before cleaning day, so that whatever they don't eat doesn't stay too long in the cage.

When there are young hoppers, I usually add cheerios, rolled oats and bread crusts for youngsters for the first couple days. We get really great growth rates in the rodents. We were using dog food for part of the ration early on, but had very scruffy, sort of oily coats and have stopped using it.

I think our feeders are rather spoiled and would likely do just fine on nutriblocks and water, but I think the bird seed does reduce the overall cost of feeding.

mary v.

[ReneeB]

our rats and gerbils get a mix of no name cat food, and mixed wild bird seed, with some veggie trimmings once a week..

grow like crazy.. and it costs $10 for over 30 lbs of the stuff!

[Feed'em All]

dog food, and some lettuce, carrots, u know.....they seem to be ok, i used to mix thier water with egg powder (i made the powder cracking the "hard part" of the egg several times), to have a extra calcium dosis, but it´s so hard they fool them to eat that y don't do it anymore

ps:sorry about my ugly english!

[Lisa]

we feed ours no name dog food. for a treat we give them rat food or cerial, not alot though.

[casacrow]

I feed mine Lab Diet 5001 (rodent diet)

[WALTER]

I get custom made mouse food made for mine. But I do go threw a ton a month so it is worth it.They do great and a friend and myself got the formulas of all the "best feeds" on the market and changed them to what we know the mice like and took out all the useless fillers and put back in the stuff they need.

[Edwin]

i use the cheapo hamster mix found in bulk barn, supplemented with dog biscuits and veges.

[JasonBrennan]

I have heard that alot of dog foods have some type of red dye in it that is very harmful to mice and rats. Is this true or no?

I feed mine a seed based rodent diet, along with plain oatmeal flakes every few days. Never any veggies other than the occasional carrot (and that is because the kids will throw them in to the cages). Our mouse colony is exploding right now, so I guess this is working.

Also, we keep the water bottles full at all times.

[AstroZombie]

I also use Nutriblocks and supplement with carrot, apple and Tropican Parrot pellets (I always have bags of the stuff around for my parrot and it has spirulina in it, the rats love it).
What's good for the rats, is good for my snakes:thumbsup:

:skull: Jenn:skull:

[Christina]

We get our feed from Rens Feed..it is inexpensive if you buy it in the 50lb bag and @100 rodents it lasts 3-4 weeks depending on how many weening babies there is in the colonies.
It is called Meusori 6f ( I think I spelt that wrong but sound it out and you have the name) it only costs $20.00 a bag.
It is very similiar to Nutri Blok but is more cost effiecient and our rats are beautiful healthy and excellent reproducers.
Once a week our rats get a treat of veggies, peanuts or sunflower seeds.
Christina

[Linds]

I used to be a firm believer in dog food was for dogs and only dogs, and that rats should be fed something that was formulated specifically for them. I had always fed my feeder rodents <a href="http://www.mazuri.com">Mazuri 6F</a>, which I still consider to be an optimal diet and very affordable ($20/50lb), until the past few months. I have switched to using a low-quality dog food. My reasoning for this is that the nutritional information is similar to feeds formulated specifically for rodents, the higher protein content makes them grow faster and supports nursing/pregnant females, and the low-quality stuff is mainly vegetable matter anyways. The small amount of animal matter that is in there, is more beneficial in my mind, in terms of gutloading rodents for snakes, than a stomach full of purely vegetable matter - snakes aren't vegetarians ;) I also give mine the occassional bit of veggies, fruit, etc. as a treat.

Jason,
I have heard that as well. Most dog foods however, don't contain any dyes at all, just check the ingredient listing first to be sure. I don't know for certain this is true, I haven't seen any documentation, etc, but it's best to err on the side of caution anyways :)

[BoidKeeper]

Thanks for all the replys guys. What I'm going with in the mean time is a small animal mix similar to hagen hamster mix but it's from a feed store and I'm mixing in one bag of our complements dog food. Is anyone feeding straight no name dog food? To both rats and mice? Of should the straight dog food be reserved for rats only?
Thanks again,
Trevor

[Linds]

Trevor,
I feed straight up dog food to both my feeder mice and rats. Its working well for me :)

For my pets however, I make up my own diet.

My pet rat gets a mix of:
<center>oats
rye flakes
millet
wheat berries
soybeans
dried green peas
outdoor songbird seed mix
niger seed
sunflower seeds
barley
corn
</center>
and once a week I give him some low-protein low-fat dog food, and a few times a week I give him veggie scraps or treats such as peanuts, collard stalks, carrots, apple, whole wheat bread crust, etc.

I also make my own spiny mouse feed, IMHO commercial diets are not suited to their special dietary requirements, sicne they are prone to diabetes and obesity.

They get fed:
<center>barley, oats, wheat berries, rye flakes, millet, dehydrated green peas, and outdoor songbird seed mix (no more than 15% of total mix is seed).
A few times a month they get some veggies (no fruit), and once a week I give them some mealworms or superworms, and a few chunks of low-protein, low-fat dog chow.

[BoidKeeper]

Cool, thanks Linds. Great post. If I could I'd send you chocolates and a valentine cause I know how much you dig that stuff:p
Thanks again,
Trevor
PS
I'll buy you a drink at the next show for that one, sorry had to.

[Snake Lady]

i just feed mine the hamster and gerbil mix from hagen with some veggies and cereal (cheerios).

Snake Lady:)

[unknownclown]

I use hamster food that I find here at the dollar store then I mix in some rabbit pellets, dried beans, cat and dog food, and every once in a while I throw in rodent blocks and bread. They love the dried beans and pick those out first.

As a rule is it best for the snakes to feed them alot of protien?

[The_Omen]

Rats and mice, square meal or lab blocks as some call them, an occasional treat thrown in.
Rabbits get the rabbit mix along with an assortment of fresh veggies which they love!

Crix get fish flakes, meal, oats etc. while mealies get bran, oats and some potatoe.

[Hamster of Borg]

The 'red dye' issue that was mentioned earlier is because the dye that is used to make dog food look more 'meaty' is not eliminated by the rat or mouse once in ingested. It is stored in their organs. It doesn't generally harm the rats and mice - at least in their lifetime as a feeder, but it has been shown to cause kidney failure in snakes. As well suspected to be linked to gall bladder problems, and some kinds of tumors. Theres some info on it on pretty much every commercial rodent breeder company's website - stating why THEY don't feed dog food. Rats and mice aren't dogs anyway...

Ham