Question about rat food?

Question

I know what to feed "my soon to be rat" for treats, but question about dry food. So, can I feed her/him hamster guinea pig food? that is about all they sell, unless I decide to feed it bird food. (catch my sarcasm?) I could see the food through the package, and it had plenty of seeds and pellets, and stuff. There was no hay or corn in it. Would this be okay, I mean, that is about all I can find here. Pet rats aren't exactly common around Little Rock. Rats are more of the thing that people want to kill here. Any way. Thanks.

Answer 1

Dear Rataoulle-

I used to breed and have them for pets. I cannot now because my wife is allergic to their urine. So that stopped that little adventure.

Rats are very cool. So lets get started here.

Rats are omnivorus rodents. They will eat insects and other things just as quickly as corn and grain products.

I have never had any luck with the Guiena Pig Food or the Rabbit Alfalfa pellets. Those would normally just sit in the dish and my rats would rather starve than eat those "Green Things"

I used to get a food mix called "Scratch". Which I would only be able to get at our local feed store. It had the Alfalfa pellets in it, but the rats never would eat them.

I added some cat food to the mixture to supply the meat portion in their diet, and this seemed to keep them really healthy. I also used to get the Lab Diet blocks from the pet store used for rats and mice. These are really good too.

Be sure to keep a small salt lick in the cage and tied up in the side with bailing wire.

I used to use the open wire cages with 1/4 inch by 3/8 inch holes with a wire bottom, then keep pine shavings in the catch pan to deal with the little unpleasantnesses that would be deposited there.

I also kept a little cardboard box on the cage too filled with shredded paper. This little thing got chaged every month to keep the cage from sinking, and the pine shavings got changed weekly.

Keep in mind that rats have no problems living in their owm filth, so you need to really keep up after this or you can very quickly become suceptable to illness. Remember in the wild these are nature's little clean up crew's so they are used to dealing with garbage.

As for feeding treats and things of that nature, carrots, apples, celery, and lettuce were always favorites. Mine never got the store bought junk, because that is exactly what it is. Raisins were always used as special treats and for training. All of my rats would come when I called their names. I would also occasionally hit the bait and tackle store and pick up Meal Worms for them too. Its a little gross, but they really like this type of treat because its what they eat in the wild, so that instinct is already there. Just dump a few of them on a small dish and put them in the cage. 2 or 3, that is all they need. they can get really fat from that type of diet on a consistant basis.

Be sure they have an exercise wheel in the cage. The wheel should be about 6 to 8 inches in diameter so they have a place to run.

Clean water!! Very Important!!!

I used to change the water bottles every 3 days regardless of the water level. This keeps them hydrated and their systems clean.

I hope this helped you out!

Answer 2

Hamster and guinea pig food really isn't a very good diet for rats. One of the best foods to feed rats is the lab block called Harlan Tecklad. You can order it from: http://www.kimsarkrescue.org/content/view/35 .

Hope this helps and Good Luck!!!!

Answer 3

well, i don't know much about rats, but try mixing the rat food with what they have been eating, then slowly putting in more and more, until it's all the rat food, that worked with my guinea pig, but, if it still doesn't work, i would think that keeping it with the cat/hamster food would be fine

Answer 4

hamster food has lots of seeds in it and it's very fattening and has very little nutritional value. guinea pig has to large of a quantity of the vitamins and minerals in it. look online for regal rat.

Answer 5

I rescued two rats from a woman that fed them guinea pig chow, and they were extremely obese...I feed my rats dry dog food, apples, carrots, strawberries, and their favorite, scrambled eggs for a treat. They also love celery. I have had my four for a couple of years now and they haven't had to go to the vet and seem healthy and spry on that diet.

Answer 6

The very best thing and only thing you need to feed is rodent block. It can be found at most pet stores or ordered on-line from a petcare company.

Answer 7

Always gave mine seeds, the hamster food, not the green pellets most do not like that.

Answer 8

Rats will eat just about anything...good luck.

Answer 9

Good things to feed your rat
This page is not done yet, and it hasn't been proofread (and most likely never will be) and I tend to ramble aimlessly given the chance, so please forgive any incoherencies or mistakes.

I put off writing this mostly because I didn't want to give anyone any really bad advice. But a lot of new rat owners don't know much at all about what to feed their rat, and end up with a toad who only eats the sunflower seeds out of the gerbil mix they get instead of real food. (Like my first rat.) So I'll at least say what I know, which is better than nothing. If I make any mistakes, and you are someone who knows better, please email me and let me know.

The basis of my rats' diet is either some brand of rat food (Harlan Teklad or Purina Rat Chow for instance) and/or Debbie Ducommun's rat food recipe and diet. (See Debbie's Rat Fan Club web site, you can get this info in the Rat Health Care book.) The nutritional needs of a rat are quite different from other rodents, and unless you know them all and can make your own rat food, you should be feeding your rat some sort of rat chow (sometimes called lab blocks). You can usually get this in bulk at pet stores, or at least in little bags. There are several brands, my rats like Harlan Telkad the best. That is to say, they will eat them, not that they are crazy about them. There are some other brands that the rats simply shove out of their food dish and bury, as if I had mistakenly put rocks in their food dish and they wished to correct my mistake.

The basic problem with feeding your rat food designed for hamsters or gerbils is that your vastly superior rat simply has different requirements from those pitiful little animals. Your rat needs protein, but if you feed them a seed mix they eat lots of seeds, nuts, etc., whatever they can find in the mix. This stuff is really fatty too, and one day you find that when your rat sits down he/she's nearly as wide as long. And your rat may end up getting all scabby (literally, it causes skin problems) from getting way too much protein and fat. Rat chow is much lower fat, but high enough in protein for your rat. There are other good things in rat chow for your rat (vitamins and nutrients and all that) that are hard to find elsewhere, but I won't go into those, as I wouldn't really know what I was talking about. A little hamster mix once in a while won't hurt, just don't over do it, and if your rat shows any skin problems at all, do away with it entirely. (Peanuts can be particularly troublesome for some rats.)

Now, while in theory your rat could live off of lab blocks alone (many lab rats do) this does not mean that your rat will enjoy this. Think of it this way -- the part of a rat's brain devoted to smell and taste is a larger portion of his/her grey matter than the portion of your brain devoted to sight. Your rat needs some entertainment. And variety seems important -- there are many things that my rats will happily eat for a day or two, but then they become bored of it and want something new.



The most common thing to add to your rat's diet are fresh vegetables and fruits. Broccoli, peas, green beans, carrots, tomatoes, bananas, cherries, whatever. I can't think of any vegetable I've offered them that they didn't like, although there are some (like asparagus) that they will only eat for about a day. Rats love lettuce, but it doesn't offer them all that much in any sort of real food value. I occasionally give them just a little with their other food, but generally you'd be better off giving them spinach or some other vegetable. Broccoli is great, and some studies claim to show it can reduce the rate of tumors in rats. Be warned it can make your rat's cage kind of stinky if you feed them a lot for several days in a row. But if you can stand it (sure you can!) the rats love it, and it's good for them. Mine get some nearly every day.

One warning that especially goes for veggies, but to some extent with any sudden change in diet -- it can upset your little rat's digestive system. Lots of vegetables all the sudden (especially leafy vegetables) can cause diarrhea, which in turn can cause dehydration. So if you change your rats diet, take it easy. My rats get lots of fruits and vegetables, but they get them every day, and if for some reason I have to stop (like if I'm gone for a few days) I ease them off of veggies and (especially) ease them back onto them over a few days.

Another treat I often give my rats caused a very strange and mind bending thing to happen to me one day. I was in the pet store buying a bunch of stuff, and as I walked up to make my purchase suddenly the lady behind the counter said, "What eats the monkey chow?" As this sentence made no sense to me, my mind automatically tossed it out, and I said, "What?" hoping that the next try would yield something coherent or at least relevant to what I understood to be my current situation.

She repeated, "What eats the monkey chow?" I was then unfortunately very sure that this was, in fact, what she had said, and my mind had the uncomfortable task of trying to make sense of it. Surely this is some code phrase, to which I am to respond with some key phrase like "The man who has lost his shoe," or she will shoot me because I know too much. Finally just as I was about to abandon all hope of tying this to reality, she picked up a bag, shook it (shake shake shake) and said, simply, "Monkey chow."

At this point I was very sure that I had gone insane. It was like a Monty Python sketch, and I expected her to start shouting "THREE! TWO! ONE!" and then write something down in a small notebook. Only after what seemed like hours did it slowly start to occur to me that maybe she was referring to the parrot biscuits (in the bag she had picked up) as "monkey chow."

And she was indeed. These are little tan/yellow blocks about the size of your rat's head. It's primate food. But parrots love them, and since most pet stores have an infinitely large parrot to monkey ratio, they are often called parrot biscuits. My vet told me they are a little higher fat than lab blocks, but not too bad, and your rat will love them. Mine take them along wherever they go, and use them for pillows/midnight snacks.

That's all for now. I will add more to this section later.


Questionable things to feed your rat