Kibble

Question
QUESTION: Hi Sandy,

I have varying ages of ratties at my home.  Young mommy rat with 15 day old babies, adult healthy rats, and an old timer, 3 years 1 month old.  

I bought lots of different kibble and soy milk, what do I feed to which stage of rat?

I have:

Purina Kitten Chow
Nutro Puppy Chow
Nutro Dog Chow
(Human Baby) Soy milk
(Human Baby) Chicken, Veal, and Beef foods
Oxbow Regal Rat

Help! If this is a duplicate email I apologize, it didn't seem to register in cyberspace with the last one I sent. : )

Heidi


ANSWER: Hi Heidi

I did answer you earlier...let me know if you did not get it and I will copy, paste it and send again.

Sandy


REVISED:

Here is the first answer I gave you, I just thought I would copy and paste it now so you didnt have to miss it:


One old rat (my love) about 3 years 1 month - who needs some extra nutrition.

Two middle aged boys and  1 mommy rat with 12 little ratties 15 days old (too cute for words!!) just starting to try different foods.

I bough everything!

Kitten kibble chow: Ok for lactating mother

Nutro puppy formula: I dont suggest it to be used on any of them.

Nutro Dog kibble: Momma rat, adult rats, senior rat. You can moisten them for baby rats that are just starting solid food until you can get the harlan teklad rodent blocks as suggested below OR if you plan on making the rat diet mixes and using this as as part of the diet that is fine too.

Oxbow  Regal Rat; rats over 4 months old ONLY.

4. Human Baby food and human baby soy milk
Ensure vanilla and chocolate is fine, too.
This is perfect for your special needs rat(the older rat) as supplemental nutrition. I owuld still continue to offer the rat mixes or the oxbow regal rat or harlan teklad blocks.

For the young rats as they get older and are starting to eat solids, you should provide them with lab blocks by harlan teklad. The only place I know to get them is on the internet.


Hope this helps!!

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi Sandy,
Thank you for attaching your answer, I didn't receive it in my inbox at all. (?) Oh well!  

I have been on a mission to make my own rat food mix!  I have been studying all the mixes from your site and also the links you have posted for other sites.  I ordered the harlan teklad blocks, but they haven't come in yet. I have been cooking pasta, rice, and steaming fresh veggies and freezing them.  How about sweet potatoes, cooked?  Is that ok?  Can I freeze them?  My hubby says he thought I didn't know how to cook!! Hee hee, anything for those little whisker faces, right?

I may be out of my mind, but I love all those little babies and I want to keep them - ALL!!  I am raising them to know me and trust me.  Let's see when they get a bit older, but I don't want any other human to not treat them right!

For the babies tonight, I soaked whole wheat bread with infant soy milk and they seemed to enjoy trying it.  Hope that was ok??

Thanks for helping me be the best rat owner I can be!!

Heidi


ANSWER:
Everything sounds good, your doing a good job. I kept ALMOST all of my babies several years back so I know how you feel. I had 12 cages in my poor kids bedroom before we had the rat room! I dont think my son ever forgave me for taking his room over when he was a little kid. He is now 17 but when he was around 11 his room was rat heaven! LOL   I rescued two females that were snake food but the snake wasnt hungry thank goodness and so the snake owner felt sorry for the girls and returned them.  I overheard the conversation between the clerk and the snake owner who said that she would not take the girls back so I took them.  They were both pregnant much to my surprise and between the two of them they had 22 babies! I already had 8 males at home so my total was 32 rats in all!!  I had a great friend who was also a great rat owner so she did take some pups which left my total count to 24 rats.  That was sooooooo long ago and it was hard work let me tell you!  Spending time with all of those babies to get them social was constant effort but for the most part they did end up being very sweet rats.   The vet bills were outrageous as the pups got older since they were not from the best quality rats (feeders) although the mothers of the pups lived to be well over 3 years old.

Anyhow, just be sure you dont offer the pups anything super gooey as this can choke them if it clogs their throats but I am also paranoid about that since rats cannot vomit and I have seen them choke and it can be scary as heck.  Sweet taters cooked are fine, btw. Gooey though so becareful.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Sandy, thank you so much for all your time and sharing your experiences with me.

My office has become the "rat room" my hubby says I'm crazy, but he comes in and sweet talks to them too!!  It's so cute when he does that.  The rat room has an air
purifier running all the time, AC set to 74 on  so they are comfortable, yet not chilly.  I have dividers attached to the cages so that the AC or air purifier can't blow on them. I don't know how this happened to me.  I started with one rat in September 2005 (still have the sweetheart)  and fell in love.

I, too, have rescued 4 feeders, although my own white girl never socialized the way some of the others did.  The mommy rat I have now is a Blue hooded - the sweetest thing in the world.  I'm hoping her babies will turn out cuddly.  The daddy is all black with a white belly and white paws.  He's ok, but needs more socialization - I'm working on that. So far of the babies I have 4 "mini-me" daddy's, 3 black hooded, 3 hooded cream and 2 solid cream.  Do you think the cream might turn bluish as they grow bigger?  

Sandra, why did you need so many cages in your son's room?  Can't they live together???  I was hoping to have the boys in one or two cages and the girls together.

It's been delightful "sharing our love of ratties" with you.

Heidi

Answer
Hi

Yes, they do live together just fine, but its not healthy to house alot of rats in one cage, especially males, due to aggression issues as they get older. I usually suggest no more than 4 intact bucks per cage even if the cage is huge. I have a ferret nation and kept no more than four bucks, two intact and two neutered.

I also rescued male lab rats that were very aggressive and had to live alone and I rescued and trained a wild female rat that of course also had to live alone since wild rats do not get along with domestic rats at all.  So I had 24 rats spread out, four in one cage, I think I had 6 girls in another cage, 2 here, 3 there, 1 here, the other there...it was a real job to keep them clean but luckily I litter trained them so cleaning was more or less dumping out their litter box and putting new litter in it etc...and wiping this or that off.
Now I am down to just four rats.....2 in one cage and two alone. The one alone has to be alone because he is blind and needs a single story cage and it would not be fair to put a healthy rat in there with him and expect him to be happy. Also, the newly solo rat, Santana, just lost his brother last week so I am debating on what to do but he cannot be put in with the other two rats. They are older and set in their ways and grumpy as all heck.  I may get another male for Santana...havent decided yet. So far he is fine. We are in Florida on vacation and he is all happy, center of attention, his travel cage is parked right on the kichen counter!