what do you feed your rodent's?

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Blake182

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Hey guy’s
I was just wondering what you all your rats and mice!
Well I feed my rats on bio mare and vegies whenever
and for mice there on bio mare as well! So tell us what you feed them!

Thanks
 
i give them a mix i use various seed and grains, fish food pellets, dog biscuits,dried fruit,nuts,vitamins/mineral block things,and heaps of different veggies, my rats go through heaps of food so far i go through roughly 2-3 kilos a week!! and its only a small colony...
 
i give them a mix i use various seed and grains, fish food pellets, dog biscuits,dried fruit,nuts,vitamins/mineral block things,and heaps of different veggies, my rats go through heaps of food so far i go through roughly 2-3 kilos a week!! and its only a small colony...
I used to use a good quality (diet science) dog biscuit for my rats and was warned away from it by Wokka who breeds rats on a large scale due the the 15% fat content and high protein content and that is why I now feed biomare, cheaper and lower fat. He has also made the comment about the amount of goodness that they receive out of feed and if you are feeding them a lot of food them they will be doing a lot of pooing which means more clean up, apparently if you feed them a good combination food that provides what they need they will not eat as much food and therefore poo less.
 
I used to use a good quality (diet science) dog biscuit for my rats and was warned away from it by Wokka who breeds rats on a large scale due the the 15% fat content and high protein content and that is why I now feed biomare, cheaper and lower fat. He has also made the comment about the amount of goodness that they receive out of feed and if you are feeding them a lot of food them they will be doing a lot of pooing which means more clean up, apparently if you feed them a good combination food that provides what they need they will not eat as much food and therefore poo less.

lol well that makes sense, i might have to cut down on the proteins/fats and give them something leaner
 
I feed mine laukie mill mice and rat food, apparently designed by rodent breeders for the reptile trade, as well I throw in a bowl of defrosted frozen mixed veggies, my babies are between 45-50 gm at 3.5 weeks when I wean them
 
You just can't beat rodent cubes that are made specifically for a complete rat and mouse diet. The best recipes have been made by mills, in conjunction with labs who need recipes for keeping rats in prime health with optimum condition, for breeding and general life. It is so much easier to just feed them that, than go to all the other bother. I used to feed biomare and scraps. I noticed a huge increase in condition on my rats when I swapped food. Believe it or not, fresh fruit and veg would not come up often for a wild rat, and are not that high in calories, and actually tend to dilute the effect of a good staple pellet. You would be better off choosing a brand like Cummins or Lauke Mills, and just giving a little bit of scraps as a treat.

Pet shop mixes are terrible for rat health, and are largely indigestible. Avoid anything with lots of green chaff looking stuff in it - it's only use will be substrate! If you do a little experiment with your own rats and split a few litters up on diets of lab blocks:pet shop and random mixes:biomare and scraps, you would be surprised by the differences. I believe people think their rats are doing really well already on their current diet, but don't realise what they could be like, and how quickly they would grow etc.
 
yeah thanks i made this so every one could get difrent opinions!
where would i be able to find rodent cubes!
 
Have looked at biomare vs rat + mouse cubes and found that biomare contains a lot more salt.Not sure it is a problem or not though.
 
Have looked at biomare vs rat + mouse cubes and found that biomare contains a lot more salt.Not sure it is a problem or not though.
Aren't they both fairly low in salt? 2.7 g/kg for rat cubes and 5.8g/kg for bio mare , I know that bio mare is over double but I would think that 5.8g/kg is still fairly low.


Edit* Sorry made a mistake, it looks like McManus rat cubes are 7.3g/kg and not 2.7g/kg

Edit 2* Made another mistake , bio mare is n14g/kg
 
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Well more salt means more drinking, more filling up water bottles, more peeing, and more changing substrate. I would prefer less salt :p

You can find rodent cubes at a lot of produce stores. You can email Cummins and Lauke mills, to find a local supplier, or it may be listed somewhere on the net. Not all cubes are made equally though, so I have heard that Barastock sucks. Apparently Norco/Goldmix is good, Cummins (Mcmannus rodent cubes is the other name for that brand), and Lauke mills rodent pellets, are the best. I personally buy 1000kg of Cummins straight from the mill so I can get it at wholesale price, and pre sell half of it to friends.
 
Well more salt means more drinking, more filling up water bottles, more peeing, and more changing substrate. I would prefer less salt :p

You can find rodent cubes at a lot of produce stores. You can email Cummins and Lauke mills, to find a local supplier, or it may be listed somewhere on the net. Not all cubes are made equally though, so I have heard that Barastock sucks. Apparently Norco/Goldmix is good, Cummins (Mcmannus rodent cubes is the other name for that brand), and Lauke mills rodent pellets, are the best. I personally buy 1000kg of Cummins straight from the mill so I can get it at wholesale price, and pre sell half of it to friends.
What is your take on protein percentage, I was told that the ideal percentage was 15% and anything over just means extra poo.
 
I can't remember what my rodent cubes have, but I would assume whatever they have is ideal, seeing as it was made specifically for rodents and is known to be a quality brand. I have been told by a credible source, that the issue is not the percentages, but the ratio of the main things > protein:sugars:fats:fibre:salt etc. If the ratios are ideal then the rat eats minimal food and stays healthy. If the ratios are out of balance, the rat can never get what it needs and is eating more or less of the food than ideal, trying to make up for it. This is an issue, and is also why feeding mixes is an issue, as they just pick out the tasty things and are not getting a complete diet. Kind of like how if you have a table full of lollies, junk food and healthy meals, kids are going to choose what is yummy, not what is good for them long term.
 
I can't remember what my rodent cubes have, but I would assume whatever they have is ideal, seeing as it was made specifically for rodents and is known to be a quality brand. I have been told by a credible source, that the issue is not the percentages, but the ratio of the main things > protein:sugars:fats:fibre:salt etc. If the ratios are ideal then the rat eats minimal food and stays healthy. If the ratios are out of balance, the rat can never get what it needs and is eating more or less of the food than ideal, trying to make up for it. This is an issue, and is also why feeding mixes is an issue, as they just pick out the tasty things and are not getting a complete diet. Kind of like how if you have a table full of lollies, junk food and healthy meals, kids are going to choose what is yummy, not what is good for them long term.
Yeah I was also told similar about the ratios.
 
All I know is that biomare contains 1.4% salt and 15.8% protein Vs 0.3% and 18% in the pellets I use.
 
Obviously wild rats take what they can get, but they don't have a very long life expectancy. What is ideal for a captive rodent pumping out babies and expected to have a relatively long life span, is not going to be what is viable for a wild rat. Although wild rats are apparently far healthier than domesticated rats, probably due to the various husbandry quirks that they endure, and indiscriminate breeding of ones with heritable ailments.
 
All I know is that biomare contains 1.4% salt and 15.8% protein Vs 0.3% and 18% in the pellets I use.

This is purely a stab in the dark, but I read that humans tend to want to consume the same volume of food every day, and if you normally eat a lot, but start drinking more water or having some soups etc, it makes you crave eating less, as you are meeting your volume quota. I wonder if that has anything to do with rats on biomare performing poorer, if the increased salt makes them drink more water, and eat less food than they would if there was less salt. For dogs with crappy dog food, they say that a dog will just eat twice as much cheap dog food as premium, because there are less nutrients so it just passes all the filler and craves more food. I wonder if they would eat less too, if the cheap food had more salt in it. It probably has less salt in it, so that the dogs are wanting to eat even more of it, and the customers spend even more money on food and end up with fat dogs. *it is late and my brain is going off on tangents*
 
First you need to decide how to judge "best", Do you mean best food conversion?- kg feed in for kg rodent produced; or are you chasing quickest growth for age irrespective of food consumed? Is it what food suits you feed system or purly dollars?After you have decided what you are chasing you will probably find that different classes of animals require different nutrition. eg a lactating mother would require about 4 times the energy of a mature male.
There is no one size fits all answer but i consistantly see good quality balanced diets being diluted with junk food treats, as Ingie has mentioned.
I dont think biomare is always the best feed as it depending what best means. It is readily available , reasonably priced, suits most feeding systems with its large pellet size and has a reasonable nutritional balance.
We use a tonne a week, but feed only represents about 10% of our cost base . Our killer is labour so we concentrate on labour efficency,which for most rodent keepers is not a concern.
 
I weighed some of my larger rodents that I grow out to feed my larger snakes, rats are 8 weeks old and they are 150-160 gm and they are fed purely on laukie mills cubes. If you have a stock feed place near you you will be able to get it, nearly all stock feed places sell either "homelay" chook pellets or "uncle Albers " or " great barko" dog food, all these are made by laukie mills and they will be able to get the rodent pellets in, you may just have to wait till they do their next order with them
 
I weighed some of my larger rodents that I grow out to feed my larger snakes, rats are 8 weeks old and they are 150-160 gm and they are fed purely on laukie mills cubes. If you have a stock feed place near you you will be able to get it, nearly all stock feed places sell either "homelay" chook pellets or "uncle Albers " or " great barko" dog food, all these are made by laukie mills and they will be able to get the rodent pellets in, you may just have to wait till they do their next order with them
What price are the cubes that you use? I get biomare in a 25kg bag for $30, I am on my first bag at the moment so I can't comment on how long it lasts yet or growth rates yet.
 
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