rat food

[snakeitup]

hey guys
i just read in a thread that people are using pony pellets as rat food, what experiance have people had with using these pellets?also what other types of pellets do people use and how much are they?

cheers

 

[soulweaver]

a lot og people use GR2, sold at most big pet shops like pet stock

 

[munkee]

For the brief time I had rats I used Guinea pig pellets. Cost $1.50 per kilo.

 

[Rennie]

For the brief time I had rats I just gave them rat/mouse pellets and meusli, same as my mice but I have a mate with pet (thats right, not for breeding or food?!! :? ) rats who eat nearly the same as us, bread, vegies, meat etc. Ferals survive on just about anything, I'd say it doesn't really matter, whatever is cheapest LOL

 

[Dave82]

I use a mix from the pet store. Do Rats need extra protein or do they pop out the little ones on a vegetarian diet?

 

[herptrader]

GR2 is specially formulated to breed healthy rodents and is sufficiently hard to wear their teeth the required amount. Basically it is a complete and balanced diet. I get my stuff home delivered for about $15 per 10Kg bag along with the shavings and other bits and pieces. If you are SE of Melbourne I can let you know my supplier.

Cost per Kg of bred rat GR2 works out cheaper than most alterntives.

I do suppliment with the odd non fatty table scraps and wholemeal bread crusts which they seem to appreciate as "treats".

 

[congo_python]

Herptrader is the GR2 in pellet form and if so how big roughly are the pellets? as at the moment i use rat and mouse pellets from produce barn(about 12mm w x 30mm l) in my hoppers for my rat and mouse tubs so as they don't fall thru and they cost me $23.75 for (20kg bag i think)

Congo

 

[swampie]

I use chook laying pellets and my rats are healthy and breed regularly with good size litters they cost me $16 per 40kg bag . For a breif time i used pony pellets and results were'nt as good so i switched back to chook pellets , in saying this i know other people who use pony pellets and there rats breed as well as mine do , maybe they use a different brand to the ones i tried.

 

[snakeitup]

hey swampie what sort of chook pellets do you use? are they golden layer pellets?

 

[Magpie]

Don't use chook pellets.
If you read the bag, they say not to feed them to anything but birds as they have ground up sheep and stuff in them.
Can anyone say prions?

 

[rockman]

Magpie , i'm up in Cairns as well . What are you using for your rats ? We are using an organic rat pellet that is supposed to be wonderful , but at $ 32.50 / 25kg bag , we are looking around for something else . Plus at the moment it's going mouldy . Thanks

 

[herptrader]

They would be very similar. 12mm by random lengths to about 30mm sounds about right.

I have found that most of the ones that come in 20Kg bags have a lot of dust in the formulation. This is fine if you have something like Feeder Roaches to feed the dust to but can be a bit wasteful.

Herptrader is the GR2 in pellet form and if so how big roughly are the pellets? as at the moment i use rat and mouse pellets from produce barn(about 12mm w x 30mm l) in my hoppers for my rat and mouse tubs so as they don't fall thru and they cost me $23.75 for (20kg bag i think)

Congo

 

[Magpie]

I was using barrastoc rat and mouse pellets.
Now I'm using a mix of dog food and horse pellets.
They just couldn't get the barrastoc in reliably and my rats went about 3 months with no babies when being fed that. On the new diet they are breeding a lot more. It still goes moudly though :s
I've just got rid of most of my breeders.

 

[snakeitup]

what sort of pony pellets are used and swampie what chicken feed do you use?
my rats are on gr2 pellets but its just too expensive thus the reason im searching for an alternative food (pellet) source

 

[junglemad]

I feed mine day old bread and scraps of vegies, meat bones, and whatever left-overs are around as well as rat pellets

 

[africancichlidau]

You can't go past GR2 by Barrastoc, best all round tucker there is for rats and as Trader said you can use the dust for your Roaches

 

[swampie]

To snakeitup,
i use barrastock golden yolk pellets .

 

[Pythoninfinite]

I use Barrastock pellets ($21 per 20 kg bag) with great results, and the broken stuff in the bags I put into the hoppers (with normal cubes) of weaners, both rats & mice. Especially if they're very young, they like to pick it off the cage floor to eat it to begin with, and within a day or two they're ready to grind from the hoppers.

Cheers, Jamie.

 

[TrueBlue]

If anyone lives in south east QLD, sunridge stock foods at forest glen on the sunshine coast sell deer ration in 40 kg bags for around $25, magic stuff, its by far the best rat-mouse food I have ever used. Most brands of rat-mouse pellets are rubbish compared to this stuff. In fact all the different brands Ive used dont come close to deer ration and are twice the price. It is the only food Ive ever used with out having to suplement with some thing else that will never let you down. Ive never had any deformities, small litters, going off breeding, eating their young, etc when using this stuff, it really is all that. Im just spewing that now Im up north I cant get it any more, infact it took me 12 months to finally get some decent food up here to even get them breeding close to what they were and Im using a mixture of Riverina rat-mouse pellets, working horse mix and pig pellets all sell for just over $20 per 20kg bag so its twice the price as well. Tried the Riddleys rat-mouse pellets, fom the tablelands, but found them to be absolute rubbish.

 

[rodentrancher]

I read somewhere that too much bread is not good for rats. Can't remember where sorry. We used to buy our rodent pellets by the tonne. Used to work out to be bout $32 per 40kg bag. Very good quality pellets. It was developed by a big rodent breeder here in SA. Had Tylan and other goodies in it. Now we are just using pellets from the food and fodder shop. Either Barastoc or Lauke. We only have 2 female and one male breeder left. Just enough to keep up with our two snakes feeding habits. Cheers Cheryl