Rat Food Brands?

Question

Hello. I am getting rats 2morrow and I am going to petsmart today to get the cage, food, toys, ect. What type of food is best? I know the need lad blocks, but what brand? Something I can buy at the store, not online. Also, do they need mineral wheels? Do they need to eat anything other than lab blocks? If so, what?

Answer 1

you really dont have to worry about giving your rat any type of food they almost eat anything that they see.

so dont waste alot of money on them when you already have food at home to feed them ;)

Answer 2

Actually, most pet store rat foods are absolute c**p. The only one I'd even recommend would be Oxbow's Regal Rat, which you won't find in Petsmart.

They do not need mineral wheels. Actually, no animals need salt or mineral wheels despite what the pet stores will tell you. If they are eating a nutritionally complete diet the wheels are completely unnecessary.

Other than their staple diet, they should be getting daily veggies and the occasional fruits.

Oxbow has a store locator on it's website so you can find Regal Rat: http://www.oxbowhay.com/index.sp

I have a write up on rat diets here: http://www.petinfopackets.com/rats/ratfe...

Edit: Law L, is the fact that you work at a pet store supposed to impress me? Pet store employees rarely know very much about the animals they sell. Most of the pet store diets out there have extremely low quality ingredients. Some, like Kaytee, even have dangerous ones such as the preservative ethoxyquin.

Are rats going to keel over on these diets? Of course not, they wouldn't be sold if they weren't at least nutritionally complete. Are they the healthiest diets available? No.

Rats wear their teeth down through bruxing. If you want to provide additional help in the form of wood chews and other things (mine loved the occasional Nylabone Edible), go for it. The salt and mineral wheels, however, are not necessary.

Answer 3

Don't get Kaytee stuff, their food has been linked to causing cancer in small animals. Most foods sold at petsmart aren't really good for rats. I suggest making you own food that would be cheaper and last for a month or 2. This is what I feed my 5 girls and it's last them about 2 1/2 months.

Dried Banana

Dried Strawberries

Dried Carrot

Dried Broccoli

Rolled oats [plain oatmeal]

Unsalted sunflower seeds

Plain cheerios

Plain wheat puff cereal [not rice krispies]

Total Cereal

Uncooked pasta

Crushed Milkbone dog treats

Dried carrot and broccoli is hard to find so giving them fresh broccoli and carrots is okay too as well as the fruits if you can't find dried. It's based off the suebees diet only with a little bit taken and added.

But if your set on a premade diet I'd go with nutriphase that's what I used before I started making it.

Answer 4

Type of food is best being rat food.

Yes, that's vauge, but anything that's called 'rat food' will be fine. I would, however, advise a nugget based food, not a mix/museli based food, as nuggets prevent selective feeding.

Mineral wheels are a good idea.

They also need fruit and veg in their diet. They will eat ANYTHING, but you can't give them anything, because they can quickly grow fat and suffer from health issues.

***

I work in a pet shop, dear.

We feed our rats on our brand rat nuggets and none of them ever suffer. We also offer mineral stones which enhance a healthy diet and wear down constantly growing teeth.

Answer 5

I usually give mine a mix of Oxbow regal rat, and Mazuri lab blocks. They also get treats every now and again, yogurt drops, a little bit of fresh fruit and veggies. My hairless boy has also been known to steal pizza rolls from my plate on occasion, not that I recommend that. ^_^