[danniixx]

For a couple of weeks my female rats have been quiet and I thought nothing of it, I have one rat called Gracie who I have been monitoring because she is really light compared to her sisters but no ribs are showing through. This week I cleaned them for the first time yesterday (revision for exams rather then bad husbandry, I usually clean them out at least 3 times a week) well I am glad I didnt clean them as I discovered that they are not eating their food, they are just storing it on the bottom of the cage under the bedding. I tried to give them some mixed seed food stuff (gerbil/ mouse much, they had some when the pet shop where I usually get food from ran out of stock and couldnt get hold of any for us) and they usually eat it all. But this morning, well theyve ate some but there is an awful lot left. Its also odd that usually when my cousins want to hold them, the girls usually oblidge and are happy sitting on knees, but just now I took them downstairs and well they just ran off him into my dressing gown where they still remain right now. They are still active and play and mount one another but they are not as noisy. Out of the three of them right now only one is interested in running on my desk the other two are just mooching round my dressing gown. I know this forum is for mice rather than rats, but Id rather not post on rat forums cos I seem to get flamed for asking anything. (I was considering breeding my rats once to gain experiance- got flamed for it, got flamed for buying from a pet shop, got flamed for asking about castrating my males and non took any notice when I said I would happily foster instead) Ive just seen my rat Gracie have a bite of food but its still only the 2nd time I have seen any of them nibble anything today, help.

 

[SarahC]

Halycon on here is good with rats.Given me some good advice, free from flaming.It doesn't sound to me as though anything is wrong,I think you might be over generous on how much you are feeding.

 

[danniixx]

I feed them two handfuls of rat food normally but last night, and when we ran out of rat food, I gave them three handfuls of the mouse munch. Ill give them a bit less tonight though I think a good way to see how much they actually eating food be to stagger feed them. Ill give them a handful now and see if they eat it then a handful later etc. Though it still puzzles me about the weight loss, I probably am over reating though I just dont want anything to happen to them, they're my kittens lol

 

[SarahC]

You will be shocked :shock: to learn then that I only feed my mice and rats every other day.Every one is in good health and the cages are not awash with wasted food.Obviously years of practice has fine tuned my skill in dishing out the right amount.In a nutshell though lots of left over food=overfeeding.

 

[Sputnik]

Have you looked in their mouths? A customer of ours had a rat that would barely eat, and he was not growing as fast as he should have. When she looked in his mouth, she discovered his teeth were growing so crooked that he could barely chew. Now he just gets his teeth clipped once a week and he never has problems.

 

[SarahC]

Thats a very good thought.

 

[danniixx]

Okay Ill give that a go, do you have any methods of doing so which make it any easier lol? I try to check them regularly but sometimes its difficult as they are wriggly girls. I'll post again when I get home if I see anything

 

[Sputnik]

I'm not sure about rats, but with other rodents I usually hold them by the scruff and gently tilt their head back (careful not to hurt them though).

 

[danniixx]

Well Ive checked them over and there teeth seem fine, are there top insisors supposed to be orange with yellow bottoms?

 

[Loganberry]

Have you changed their food lately? You say you gave them mouse food yesterday, but i know if mice's diets are changed they can flately refuse to eat the new stuff.

 

[danniixx]

Yeah we ran out of the usual rat food I feed them and we couldnt get hold of it anywhere so they were on mouse munch for a week, I didnt feed them last night and Ive just given them their usual food and well its still there, from what I can see they may have even stashed some of it. But the uneaten mousemuch from yesterday has gone so thats a good sign

 

[Loganberry]

ah ha! that is probably the problem then - they didn't like the change in food, so left it. they might be hungry from not eating it, but more likely they are eating some of it and it's maybe not giving them everything they need. Or they're sulking because they're not getting their favourite snacks! Go back to the original food asap, i would - i bet they perk up.

 

[Halcyon]

sorry havent been on the board much lately

commercial rat food isnt great for rats to be honest :roll:

if you are worried that your girls are a bit thin then give them some bread and some uncooked pasta, they will love it and soon will start to put some weight on, be careful though, don't feed this forever or else they will end up right little lardy bums!!!

I give mine an unsliced loaf and they love it! - they eat the middle out of it and turn it into a house

I feed my rats on rabbit mix, dog mixer biscuit and some cereal like shreddies. They get some dog kibble when they are babies or nursing babies.

I feed my rats 6 days out of 7, I leave them the day before muck-out

if you have any ratty questions, please feel free to PM me

Lisa

 

[danniixx]

Well I am happy to say that the girls ate their food last night. It seems they were sulking lol the every other day method seems to be working quite well Ill be on later to pick brains about feeding them stuff other then commercial food- I actually fed my boys pasta last night havent checked to see if they scoffed it though