Pixel Eating Baby Food Out of the Container

Posted on March 31st, 2008 in by Cassi

A video of Pixel from earlier tonight. I thought they might have fun with an almost empty baby food container.

New Food for the Rats - Harlan Teklad 2014

Posted on October 6th, 2007 in by Cassi

I’ve heard such good things about Harlan Teklad, so I decided to go ahead and try them out. It comes in different varieties and levels of protien, but I got the 2014 which means it has 14% protein. Unfortunately you can’t just buy it from a pet store, so I ordered it from ColdBloods.com - a reseller. They were great, and it arrived in 2 days. The down side is that you have to order it in 33lb. shipments. That’s okay though, I just have a freezer full of extra food. And the price came out to 96cents per pound after the shipping was added in. Not bad! Mazuri was costing me $3 a pound at PetsMart.

Anyways, the rats love it! I put some in their bowl along with the Mazuri and some cheerios and pasta for dinner. Usually they grab the snacks, like cheerios, first, but tonight they were grabbing the Harlan! The best part was when Pixel tried to shove a cheerio, a pasta spiral, and a lab block all in his mouth at once and run away. He didn’t get very far, but I wish I had a camera. :D When I went back to check on them 2 hours later all that was left in their dish was Mazuri. So I’m definitely glad I switched.

As a side note, I’m going to try to switch the gerbils over to the Harlan too. They seem less excited about it, but I think it will be healthier than the all seed diet they’re on now. I may not get them totally switched, but a balance of seeds and blocks would help.

Spaghetti for the Ratties

Posted on September 26th, 2007 in , by Cassi

The rat babies LOVE food! They go nuts over fruit, cheerios, and oatmeal, and I gave them whole wheat spaghetti with tomato/basil marinara sauce tonight for the first time. It seems like they really enjoyed it! Check out the pictures and see for yourself :P (sorry they’re a little out of focus…)

rats with spaghetti

pixel eating

They also got a little bit of scrambled egg for breakfast yesterday, but they were less enthusiastic about it.

Rat Food Plans

Posted on July 13th, 2007 in by Cassi

The past couple of months I have been doing a lot of reading about rat food and learning what’s best for the ratties. There’s a lot of bad info out there, and a lot of terrible commercial food! I can’t believe pet food companies get away with selling such nutritionally poor food.

I’ve decided the way I’m going to go is with the Mazuri lab blocks and add in about 25% fresh “people” foods. The reason I want most of the diet to be lab block is because I know it’s nutritionally complete. I’d be worried about mixing my own food and not meeting those needs. And from what I’ve read, Mazuri is the second best lab block (after Harlan Teklad, which would be difficult to get). I also picked up some all natural granola, whole grain cereal, and pasta spirals. Plus we always have fruits and apple sauce around the house. I’ll probably get some frozen fruits/veggies to keep around, too. I want to work in some meat, but that’ll depend on how often we have something suitable in the house. I know a lot of people use dog food, so maybe I can try that to work in extra protein. Does anyone visiting my blog have suggestions?

Only a few more days until I go pick them up!