Thank you so much, I've been researching on rats for two years and I still am. I asked my parents recently if I could have rats and they said yes! I'm getting rats in May, and I'm so excited! :)
Congratulations! I've also researched for a couple years and convinced my parents to let me get them :D I'm getting them in approximately a month or two
Congrats! My parents won’t let me have rats because my mum is scared of them 😂 I kinda understand why, but I think they’re sooo cute and smart!! Also my lil’ Shih Tzu dog called Lilly would try and eat them...
A good video. My fave strategy for treats is to go in the baby aisle at the supermarket. You can get good rice puffs, fruit bars, and cookies there with simple ingredients to check and very few additives or preservatives. Cheap too!
ChloesCrib Yes! But don’t give that to them often, treats can make them over weight, I feed mine mealworms! They love them and they are pretty good for them!
@@questionablejudgement3137 I'm not quite sure off hand. I will see if I can find out any good resources for you from rat lover friends who know more than me.
I always gave my rats, through generations, a homemade blend of grains, seeds, and nuts. To that I gave them fresh food daily, whatever was left over from dinner (usually veggies and a small portion of whatever meal I had, as long as it wasn't too spicy). Almost all lived quite healthy and long lives! The only one I lost earlier than expected was genetic (I suspected a brain issue as a sibling apparently experienced the same fate). I never had a rat with diarrhea... I would occasionally spoil them with a bit of pancake and such, maybe every other month. ...And I may have kept a list of their individual favourite foods so I'd give them a personalized menu sometimes...
I feed my five ratties a mixture of seeds, dried foods, dried flowers , mealworms as there dry food and everyday I cut different fresh fruits and veggies for them.
Hey Victoria, my hamster is fed Higgins/Mazuri and he always leaves the same 2 pieces of food in there, I’ve tried waiting him out, but he refuses. What should I do?
I got some boys from a rehome situation She had them on Wild Harvest which we all know isn’t good Have them on Oxbow now and oof it is expensive but rather them have good food than something bad. She kept them in an empty cage and never spent time with them or gave me treats. They now have a cage full of enrichment and earlier today had watermelon and a bit of pasta
my daughter fed her Rats most of everything..cheese, bread, pasta cooked etc, they loved it all and after her having rexcued them in a bad state, their coats became sleak and shiny, they didn't loose so much hair and they lived until their time was up naturally. They had basic daily dried food, but much of their diet was fresh.
Rats tend not to overeat regular food, once they have eaten their fill, they stash the rest- although they usually forget about the stash or don't eat it so it just gets wasted
While I've personally had the same experience with my rats never overeating, it's not correct to say that it never happens. Some rats do just like to eat a lot. Also, males are more likely to overeat than females, who prefer to stash it. I always have to try to estimate how much I can give my, because it mixes with the bedding in their hides when they stash it, so I can't really see it well, and I don't like the idea of throwing out perfectly good food when I clean it out. It's kind of annoying that I can't just put food in there and expect them to just eat it...
I'm so excited to get rats, I'm 14 so I wanted to do lots of research and your channle helped me so much. I even convinced my mom to get rats from a good breeder instead of a pet store! Thank you so much!
I'm currently 12, and I've been interested in rats for awhile. I'm a bit of a mess right now because of adhd, but my mom said I can get rats once I get used to my chore schedule and actually turn in my schoolwork lol. I'm so excited! may I ask if you've gotten them yet? if you have, how are they doing?
thank you! i’m getting rats in a few weeks and i’ve been doing a LOT of research to make sure they get the best life possible and you’ve REALLY been helping me!
This is really helpful. I'm getting three rats next week for the first time. I already have names for them😁 Marley, Cheechy and Mary Jane. I have been quite depressed lately and animals help A LOT with my depression. I never had rats before but I'm already happy knowing imma be going on a new pet adventure. I'm doing tons of research so I can give my rats the best time ever!!
I made my own mixxx It has: -specialised rat food -pasta -dried meal worms -strawberry biscuits -sugar free cheerios -corn flakes Then I feed them some boiled egg from time to time along with fresh veggies
I LOVE YOUR RATS NAMES SO MUCH. I don't have any yet but we are getting three soon and I'm naming mine Sir Ratley Cheeserton the third. Love a penny name
i used to feed my rats (i don't have them anymore sadly) a store bought mix for rats. i don't remember the brand but it was okay quality. i gave them fruit or vegtables (grapes were one of their favourites) as snacks multiple times a week. sometimes i gave them a little cheese or some leftover chicken from dinner, but not too much ofcourse. everything they didn't eat right away would be stored somewhere in the cage.
This is really helpful. I was feeding my rats pets at home nuggets untill I saw this and now I have a good homemade mix.this is the best video out there for rat diet. Thank u so much
I'm a bit conflicted. I was recommended Reggie Rat, but then I found out that rats aren't supposed to eat dried corn and the mix had exactly that in it. Then I saw an exotic animal nutritionist this week at a recommended exotic animal hospital and she highly recommended Burgess and says that all her patients are on it and that they've had no issues, but other rat owners are telling me not use the food. My chinchillas were on the Burgess chinchilla food and they did just great on it and I figured my rats would do just as well, but now I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to feed them.
something about banana chips and dried fruit chips in general; they get a sugar water wash to prevent browning so they have more sugar than the base banana. just something to remember
I loved this video so much!So informative and interesting on the variety of food you can feed to rats!Im getting 2 boys named hero and rémy next month and I can’t wait to have 2 rattons
I don't have rats but I found this video to be really informative! Its never weird learning about different animals/pets that people want have! I found this video really nice and interesting :)
I just feed mine nutritional pellets and I will mix it with small cucumber and apple slices but I still do my research to find better food considering I just got mine not to long ago
A little late but I watched with subtitles😳 It thought you said the n word with a hard R when you said nugget, oh no😭😭😭 But super excited to get my rats this weekend! :)
Awesome video. I give my ratties veggie pasta, organic granola, organic whole oats and organic ancient grain called Kamut. They have Oxbow as their main kibble. I am from the States. Oxbow is expensive but one of the best here. Native Earth and Mazuri are also great.
I make my own mix using the shunamite diet :) I'd also recommend the book The Scuttling Gormet (by Alison Campbell who invented the Shunamite diet) it has tips on homemade mixes, nutritional info on what rats need and lots of recipes on homemade treats and dinners for rats :D
In vet school we are taught to recommend against homemade diets for most species. Generally accessible people foods tend to not contain the correct amino acids for dogs / cats / rats etc. Also, the average pet owner is unlikely to spend so much time making an appropriate diet. A commercial mix would not be recommended by vets due to selective feeding can cause severe nutritional imbalances. The lecturers recommended a high quality nugget food with intentional treat supplements. The treats can be used to incorporate enrichment.
Unfortunately most vets are not trained in nutrition for each animal and aren’t nutritionist. It makes sense on a general level to recommend it to those that won’t put the effort in, but there’s far too many issues with most of the pet foods on the market.
I know this video is old now but hey ho lol.. I used to feed my rats a lab block type nugget which a fairly large square nuggets that have a nice balance of nutrition just in smaller amounts so the idea is to supplement along with it.. they had the lab blocks in a dish and would help themselves (my rats chose to never over eat) and I'd sprinkle some dry mix around their living space and then in the evening a good bowl full of fresh fruits and vegetables and occasionally some unseasoned meat
so this is what i have my rat today to see if it was a thing she would like Oats Oxbow Dry mealworms Cheerios blueberry,strawberry, or cantaloupe and i did strawberries and cantaloupe cut up
I personally use Altromin, a lab block, everyone in denmark uses and recommends this, including rat breeders. It gets shipped from Germany. I've been told it's aparantly the highest quality rat food yet it's surprisingly cheap in a giant 12kg bag, that lasts about a year for two rats. What's odd is that it claims to have 19% protein, but on other pages it says it's 24% for post metabolization, whatever that means. Yet even mazuri has 23% protein, despite rat sites saying protein should be less than 20%, so... I'm stuck with only using that brand since I can't get anything else that isn't worse quality.
My hamster recently passed away its been very hard on me. But I usally adopt other pets and it helps me cope. So I'm currently doing research to perswade my parents to let me adopt rats. (Yes my pfp is my hamster)
For treats, I chop up a baby carrot into tiny pieces (I get about 50 pieces out of one baby carrot) that get shared between my 4 rats, so nobody gets too much. I cut the carrot into 1-2mm thick slices, which then each get cut into 3 strips. It also has the advantage that it only takes them a few seconds to eat each piece, so I don't get bored while waiting for them to be done with it. I do the same with other foods too, but baby carrots are the easiest in terms of cutting it into tiny pieces without the pieces falling apart.
That doesn't mean they are boring though. I used to have a single rat with poor care and after she passed I found your channel and I just got 2 rats that are living the life lol
I feed my rats nuggets that have all the right nutrients in them, I am worried that if we feed them a mix of foods then they won’t eat everything as they may pick out bits they don’t like. But we give them treats to make it interesting for them (they love carrot)
I almost made the mistake of getting some rats from Petco. But instead I went to a locally owned pet shop that has been opened for over 50 years. The owner had given me some tips on what I can feed them. Fresh produce and grain. Learning more on what I can give them. The best part is I got a couple of babies, they are tiny like a mouse and I can't wait for them to get big and fat 😁😁
Wow I love rats! I really want two females I’ve been researching for months. I think I can convince my parents by the end of the summer. I plan on making my own mix of food and I’m going to splurge on the feisty ferret cage( I might have to put another layer so they can’t escape. This video was super helpful! Thank you🙂
Mazuri rat and mouse is actually very good for mice, probably the best. It's not that nutritional for rats but when put with other foods works great. I use both science selective AND mazuri rat and mouse for my rats. I also put a mix with that for extra variety and nutrition, just incase the 2 blocks aren't enough. My mix consists of either a couple of the things listed or all of the things listed- Dry brown and/or white rice Dry lentils Dry split peas Dry barley Dry steel cut oats Plain cheerios I'm also planning on adding dry noodles, unsalted rat safe nuts/seeds, dry mealworms/other dry insects, and *maybe* cornflakes.(I've heard they're good for rats) I already give my rats live insects as a treat sometimes(and will continue doing so)but I feel like they should eat insects more regularly. 😊 Oh and of course, I also give them regular treats and fresh food.(fruits, fresh veggies, yogies, chocolate, etc)
I do a mix of lab blocks, duck & chicken dog food, raw organic oatmeal, parrot food with the peppers removed, cherry Os, macaroni, mixed nuts, and dried carrots. 🐀🐾
I feed both my rats and mice mixes made by Rapunzel. Their mixes are made by a local rodent breeder here in Finland, and they're only 3,40€/kg for the mouse mix and 3,60€/kg for the rat mix. When I first saw it at the pet store, i thought it was too cheap to be good, but after doing some research and asking around In facebook groups, turns out a lot of mouse owners and breeders recommend the mouse mix (many actually said it's the best quality mix available here) , and the rat mix is pretty popular as well. So though it's generally true that cheap foods are low quality, apparently there are exceptions. (Probably because it's literally made at the company owners house by her alone, and packaged in clear plastic bags.)
My problem is even if the bowl is empty they like to squirrel away food so I'm not sure how much of it they've eaten and how much they've hidden until I clean the cage.
Here in the U.S. the best nuggets (if you can find them) are TEKLAD, which is what scientists feed rats during experiments. I know, the fact that rats are experimented on is heartbreaking, but the food is the best quality possible, and rats can survive well on the nuggets alone (though they of course should get treats for variety). The reason the food is such great quality is because rats used in science are required to have all items controlled for in order to keep variables from messing up experiments. If the scientists gave the rats a varied diet, the rats could pick and choose items they liked best, so they’d have different diets which might affect their results. The scientists want the rats to be extremely healthy so that anything they are experimenting with can be shown to cause any results, as opposed to rats with poor health/poor diet getting sick due to their nutrition. TEKLAD makes different formulas with different percents of protein - the highest protein is for pregnant and nursing moms, the medium level is for growing baby rats and the standard level is for full-grown rats. Teklad also makes an excellent paper-pulp bedding with no dyes or perfumes, and it is autoclaved (again, for the science industry). I get my supplies at a local small animal non-profit, since they buy the bedding and food to feed their adoptable pets. That said, it still may be hard to find... It is sold online, but you will want to verify it is genuine and not a knock-off...
Aw, that’s too bad! My babies do well on it, but I think the breeder they came from feeds it to her ratties as well. Next time you have rat food they don’t want, don’t throw it out! I’ve found that it is incredibly yummy to SQUIRRELS! Nothing cuter than squirrels coming right up to you to get some rodent chow... 🐿
Hiya! My rat, Mika, really loves eating rubber things. She eats the rubber on my bike (she actually ate the rubber on the brakes) and I'm scared that she can be harmed by the rubber. I try to keep rubber away from her, but she always finds a way to find some. I free roam my rats in my parents' room, and they use earplugs. My rats always find some earplugs, and they always eat the earplugs aswell. Lol. I still love my girls tho.
I NEED HELP (i'm not yelling just doing this so you can see my comment) I'm so stressed cause I want my rats to live their best life they can but I don't know what to feed them. I looked at the website you found your rat mix you use but I couldn't find anything. I just really don't want to hurt my rats......and buy pet shop food. Please please help.....😢😣
I usually buy a bag of frozen veggies (it has edamame, cauliflower, another type of beans, carrots). I also feed them sometimes granola (the ones with no flavours), egg (boiled), rice (with no salt), tuna, worms. Some seeds like pumpkin and sunflower seeds, sometimes a bit of raw pasta and I think that's about it. I do think I am doing it right so you should try those things.. if you rats are already adults or old be careful with lots of protein
Hi, could i ask if science selective supreme rat food is OK righ now, in 2019? I live in Czech republic and the selective rat food is the only available rat food in here from the best rat pellet foods. No oxbow, mazuri and so on. Thank you very much
So in the end I'm giving my rats a mix made by registered breeders and specialists from our country, bc it's waay better than those store bought pellets. Most of our rat breeders don't reccomend these processed pellets bc it's not the best thing for them, especially the ones with soya in it.
It's one of the better brands of nugget foods in the UK. It is quite high in wheat content though, and this can cause issues such as kidney failure later on in life.
(I know this video is kinda old and Idk if anyone is gonna answer me but) I was wondering if we could mix some store bought mixes with some nugget food? Or would they be better separated? (Sorry for my broken English)
Same! I have three rats and I had them on oxbow but they didn’t like it much they barley ate anything and were underweight (I was giving them plenty too) and so I switched to an all natural diet with fruits veggies and protein while I figured out what to do and I’m trying to find a good one to go with but it seems every brand is bad. I’m thinking about oxbow garden select but everyone says their rats hate it and some get allergic reactions. I also tried a mix but they pick out certain things which isn’t healthy. So now I’m stuck again. It seems there aren’t many options with pellet food for rats.
They are now all healthy weights after an all natural diet but I’m afraid that it’s not nutritious. I’m following a like “rat expert’s” meal right now but like idk how legit she is because she could be lying and a lot of the comments are saying how a lot of the info she says is wrong
I feed my rats nuggets but I am going to try and make my own mix 😀 I give them 18 grams at 2 pm and another 18 grams at 7 pm. We always scatter their food around the cage too 😊 What food should I put in their mix, I am thinking oats, a bit of pasta, some veggies. Maybe beans, a bit of meat and cheese?? I honestly have no clue I have been trying to look it up but I feel like that is all the nutrients
