My pet rats diet

Question
Hi! This is my first time asking a question so hear it goes. I have 2 females rats and right now I'm feeding them Kaytee forti diet blocks. I have now learned that thats not good for them at all. So i was wondering if this diet would be ok:

1)lab blocks from a pet health food store (First 4 ingredients are: soybean meal, wheat middlings, ground corn, soybean oil. 17% protein, 5%fat)

2)Rat kibble from the pet health food store. (There are no seeds and stuff like that. They all look the same and are a grey colour. Sorry, dont know the ingreidients.)

3)A LITTLE bit of guinea pig food (timothy based)

4)Fruits and Veggies everyday

I can't order online because the shipping prices are really high. (It costs about 25 dollars to ship to me for 3 lb's of food). I tried making my owm mix before and it didnt turn out to well. My rats picked out all the good stuff and didnt like anything else. Thanks for your opinion! And if my ratties diet needs to be changed (by "my ratties diet", I mean the one I just asked about)or if needs tweeking, just let me know! Thanks a bunch!

Answer


1)lab blocks from a pet health food store (First 4 ingredients are: soybean meal, wheat middlings, ground corn, soybean oil. 17% protein, 5%fat)

2)Rat kibble from the pet health food store. (There are no seeds and stuff like that. They all look the same and are a grey colour. Sorry, dont know the ingreidients.)

3)A LITTLE bit of guinea pig food (timothy based)

4)Fruits and Veggies everyday


Cut out the guinea pig food. It probably contains alfalfa which rats cannot digest. it also has extra vitamin C and rats can do without that as well.

Also, don't use the rat kibble if you don't know the protein content. it should really not exceed 15% but 17% for the lab blocks is not bad. I do like the soybean as the first ingredient but wish it did without the ground corn.  Where are you ordering online that shipping is that much? That is crazy. I have never seen it that high before for harlan teklad lab blocks.
As for the homemade rat food, have you gone over my website on rat diets?  
It is really important they have low protein and fats to prevent kidney disease. I have some good links for rat diets and your adding some veggies daily, also add some meats twice a week such as chicken or beef livers. Both are high quality animal protein sources.

Check out my site here:

http://www.freewebs.com/crittercity/ratsandahealthydiet.htm

Thanks for writing and if you have any more questions feel free to ask!