Pet Forum / Mammals / Rats / March 2004

a seed diet like hamster mix will make a rat really fat really quicky,
so you don't want that.

i feed harlan teklad lab blocks, which can be difficult to get ahold
of as they're not sold in pet stores. i buy them from kim's ark
<http://www.kimsarkrescue.org> and have them shipped. they charge a
dollar a pound i think (i buy 33 lbs at a time so it's been awhile,
but i'm feeding 12 rats :). oxbow is good, purina lab diet is good.
kaytee, commonly available at petstores, is bad. it's not very
nutritious and it contains a preservative called ethoxyquin which is
thought to cause cancer. i fed this when i first got rats and really
they preferred to build towers out of it instead of eat it.

i also feed a low-protein dogfood (currently nutro natural senior) and
a grain mix similar to the one found here:
<http://ratsrule.com/diet.html>. my rats seem to be happy eating it,
and none of them are especially fat.

fresh fruits and veggies are very good. mine usually get a bit of
whatever i'm eating too....

hope this helps!

--
"I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets." (sylvia plath)
http://shattering.org
x-no-archive: yes in the headers

Hi Sean, congRATulations on your new little buddy!
You should feed Buddy a rat block, Hagan,Purina or Tekland. And supplement
his diet with vegetables like: peas, fresh or canned corn, bok choy,
broccoli... You can also make him a grain mix as another supplement.
Here's a good site for a rat diet. Buddy will love you so much for this:
http://www.ratsrule.com/diet.html
Have you considered giving Buddy a buddy? Rats are very social animals and
he may enjoy having another rat around to play and sleep with. Although, you
may have to do slow intros in the beginning, especially since he is not used
to other rats with him.
Keep us posted!!

If you're a bit lazy like me or can't find lab blocks all half decent petshops
should sell special rat food.  It provides a complete diet and so the only extra
thing you have to give the rat is treats!  When I first had my rat I thought she
didn't like a lot of stuff in her food 'cos she'd leave a lot of things.  I've
now found out that I was overfeeding her.  Since moving her into my bedroom (I
moved house and bedroom's the only place she can go) I've found out that all the
stuff I didn't think she liked she ate at night time.  In the dark.  When she
thinks I'm asleep.  One thing you'll learn to appreciate about rats is that they
are cleverer than you think - and I'm not talking about navigating obstacle
courses or doing tricks.  These guys PLAN.  They THINK.  They REMEMBER and most
of all they WATCH.

Dogs have taken over the planet by being essentially stupid and chasing sticks.

Cats have taken the cute and fluffy approach (if you own a cat you will quickly
see through this - most cats have a vicious streak just under the surface.)

Rats have taken over the world by being independent, resourseful and CLEVER.
They don't chase sticks or meow and rub themselves up against our legs to get
food, they just work out how to steal it!

Didn't the petshop ask where all these hamsters were going?

They do like their alcohol don't they..

Phew.  Rats have very weak livers so alcohol is not good for them at all. I used
to dip my finger in beer (although experiments showed that she had a marked
preference for vodka) and let her lick that but then realised the amount she
managed to steal was far in excess of this.   She's now a forced teetotaller.

If rat doesn't like it, it's gotta be good for her!  Parents have the same
problem (and use the same logic) with children.

Consider
a) leaving them on a plate in reach of the rat - they'll taste much better if he
can steal them
b) Being evil and giving the rat fewer scrummy treats.  Chances are you're
overfeeding him anyway (not that he minds!).

As everyine else said, if he's got rat blocks he needs nothing else, but
anything healthy to vary his diet is welcome, as are treats :-)

As said before, he's watching and learning.  After a while he will venture onto
your desk and scent mark important components like the keyboard and mouse[1].
Note how very quickly his apparent random scuttlings over the keyboard will shut
down the computer, change the active window or delete your work far more
frequently than should be possible.  He will also start to investigate
electrical wires, looking inside them to see what the electricity looks like.[2]

[1] Uneducated humans think this is mere widdling, but this is apparently
because we're limited in how we perceive the environment around us.
[2] On the one hand this would seem to show the limited intelligence of the rat,
as biting through a cable carrying mains electricity is not a 'sensible' thing
to do.  However, the fact that my rat is still alive perhaps hints at a more
thorough understanding of electricity than perhaps we give them credit for.

I got a good lab block today from my exotic animal purveyor.
Her rats look good and happy. Buddy still has no interest in carrots. He
likes walnuts though, are they okay just for treats?
Sean