| Food!! |
| There is nothing a rat loves more than food. The great thing is rats are omnivores and will eat almost anything so you are able to give them quite a varied diet. Firstly you need to find a good quality dry mix to act as your rat's main diet. |
| FRUIT & VEG |
| Rats will appreciate some fruit and veg in their diet. It gives them additional vitamins and gives them something other than their dry mix. **If you are traveling with your rats for a long journey a piece of carrot or cucumber will act as a snack and a source of water to the animal.** Greens will be readily eaten by rats but you can also feed them things like; apple, pear, pineapple, strawberries, tomatoes, broccoli, baby corn, carrots, peppers, lettuce and anything else you can think of! Trust me, rats aren't as picky as you or I! |
| CHOCOLATE |
| You might be tempted to give your rats chocolate and a little won't hurt. Too much is bad for your rat and will cause it to get fat. Mine like either yoghurt, milk, or original chocolate drops. But then again they would eat any chocolate! |
| Other items you can give to your pet is some of the food you eat yourself. Rats will love to eat your left overs. Meat, boiled egg, cheese, toast, tea, (my herd like to have their piece of buttered toast in the morning!!), bread, cereals, potato, rice, in fact anything you can think of. The most important thing to remember is don't feed them too many fatty items and avoid spicey or acidic food as the rat can't have either. |
| OTHER FOODS |
| HANGING FRUIT |
| Get yourself some thick string, a big needle and a selection of fruit and veg. Thread the food on in any order. You can make it any size you want to. Once your happy, hang it up in your rat cage. This is more interesting than putting the food in a dish. Everytime I try to do this Monkey cheats and chews through the string. Hopefully your rats will leave it alone and appriciate how creative you are! |
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| A WORD OF ADVICE... |
| If you keep male rats then you need to know the following about oranges. Orange juice contains d-limonene which binds to a protein in male rats kidneys. If this builds up then it causes cancer. Female rats are perfectly safe to eat oranges as they do not have the same protein that the male rat has. If you wish to give your male rat oranges, the flesh is okay but wash it first to remove the skin oils. |
| My personal rat mix |
| Burgress Supa Rat - this is what I use as the base of my mix. You want this to be two thirds of the quantity you make up. Wheetabix - I just by the stores own brand to save money. You want to break up a few of these into the mix. Rice Crispies - Again I buy stores own brand. Add a generous amount, they seem to disappear in the mix. Sunflower seeds - I just throw in a handful for good measure Banana chips - Again just throw in a handful Pasta - Any shape of pasta will do, the rats don't mind! A couple of handfuls of this. Maybe best to leave out if the rats are in your room cos it can get noisy! PAH nuggets/museli mix - I add some of this to just give some more variety. Some rats don't like the nuggets. Shreddies - Again own brand will do. A few handfuls of this added too. James Wellbeloved Chicken and Rice dog kibble - Yup you guessed it, just a couple of handfuls of this too! As you can probably tell I don't go by exact measurements. I go by what I feel should be in it. If I gave lots of shreddies this time, next time I would give more pasta - you get the idea. Variety is important to me for my rats. I would hate to eat just supa rat on its own everyday. As the saying goes variety is the spice of life. |