Question, is there anything special you feed your rats to improve the nutrition your snakes are seeing?
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fresh veggies, grains, protein, occasional fruits. Feeding a high quality lab block, we feed the Harlan lab block when we breed rodents
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Aka stay away from doggie bag lol. Feed rubbish, get rubbish. Idk why that is such a hard concept for some
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So essentially feed as you would if you wanted the rats to live long as pets. A good healthy diet means good feeders/breeders.
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pretty much! A lot of people don’t realize that rats love fresh food and should be fed a quality diet.
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So don’t feed dog food? Or what’s doggie bag?
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What do you use for the proteins?
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I feed my rats Oxbow Essential rat food. I give them vegies and mealworms to for extra protein. But mealworms are also fattening. So I don’t give them a whole lot at a time.
There good for pregnant or nursing mother rats.
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I fed my pet rats oxbow as a base food. It is one of the best foods you can get for em as it has no corn or seeds or large amount of sugar in it. It keeps them from being picky too.
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I think a high quality dog food would be just fine, just not the cheapest on the shelf. I’m fairly new to the game and I feed Mazuri Rat and Mouse, it has high protein. And I feed a handful of black sunflower seeds, raw spinach or other veggie a couple times a week and part of a hard boiled egg once a week or so. They didn’t like anything but the sunflower seeds at first but they’re coming around lol. Sometimes a few blueberries, an apple core, there’s only a few fruits or veggies they can’t have.
Some people give them boiled chicken for protein supplement as well.
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Don’t feed apple cores unless you remove the seeds. The seeds have cyanide and can kill them.
Here is a link for a list of safe and dangerous foods for rats.
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I feed all my rats dog food!!! I assure you it’s fine I usually have way more rats than I need. They also get some of my leftovers!!! They love tortellini!!! When your feeding 200 pounds of food a month mazuri adds up!!! I have a male hairless I’ve had for 6 years that’s had zero health problems.
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You can feed dog food, just make sure not to get low quality dog food. The link I posted says the same thing. Make sure to feed more than just dog food as well. Variety is the key to a good diet for them.
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It’s my understanding that dog food causes problems with calcium absorption when fed to feeder insects that are fed to reptiles. I doubt dog food provides proper nutrition for a rodent, even if there aren’t similar issues with calcium absorption when fed to feeder rodents. Though rats can eat a lot of stuff, I’d be concerned about nephrosis or nephrocalcinosis if the protein level is too high, and that would mean unhealthy feeder rats. I have seen NTP-2000 recommended because it’s low in protein and has a good Ca:P balance. AIN-93G is another lab diet I’ve heard is good for low phosphorus content. Oxbow is generally speaking a maker of high quality exotic small companion animal diets for the pet owner, on a smaller scale.
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I’m curious, can you feed the breeders higher nutrition foods for themselves so they’re healthier and then “gut-load” the ones that are going to be feeders for more nutrition for the snake?
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I’m also curious…
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