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Please tell us what you feed your mice :roll:
Feel free to list ingredients if you mix your own
Feel free to list ingredients if you mix your own
What do you feed your mice?
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Commercially prepared rodent pellets. Sometimes they get rice, bread, vegetables, etc, but the pellets are the staple, making up around 80-90% of the diet. The foods sold in pet shops over here are absolute garbage and make your rodents unhealthy. Most of the lab style pellets are good.
The rats don't get rice, but sometimes they get vegetables and bread, and if they're lucky they get insects (which I breed primarily for my lizards and to sell to bird, lizard and amphibian keepers).
The rats don't get rice, but sometimes they get vegetables and bread, and if they're lucky they get insects (which I breed primarily for my lizards and to sell to bird, lizard and amphibian keepers).
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723 Posts
[email protected] Rat muslie and wild bird seed plus fruit n veg
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721 Posts
Mine tend to get what I can get at the time but mainly Rabbit mix with Rat and mouse food with some dog mixer biscuits and some sprigs of millet. They also get dog biscuits too help file their teeth down, they get scrambled egg rarely but when they have it they love it.
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65 Posts
Big mix, in descending order of volume:
[email protected] gerbil and mouse 'muesli'
Rolled oats
Wild bird seed
Flaked barley
Kitten kibble
Linseed
Sunflower seeds
...mixed with powdered lactol. Then salad, baby corn, millet, random seed bunches from the 'Naturals' range...OH says they get better food than he does...
[email protected] gerbil and mouse 'muesli'
Rolled oats
Wild bird seed
Flaked barley
Kitten kibble
Linseed
Sunflower seeds
...mixed with powdered lactol. Then salad, baby corn, millet, random seed bunches from the 'Naturals' range...OH says they get better food than he does...
The price of feed is going up dramatically here. It has about doubled over the last couple of years and over the last few months has increased by a further 50% or so. It's now well over $1/kg (which adds up when you're buying 100kg at a time), so we're looking for alternatives such as chicken or dog feed pellets. These are of the same quality and similar nutritional value, but are produced in larger quantities due to the demand, making them cheaper.
We still use rice, a range of vegetables, milk thistles, bread and other feed to supplement the staple diet.
We still use rice, a range of vegetables, milk thistles, bread and other feed to supplement the staple diet.
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523 Posts
We vary our foods. The only things we always include are a rat mix, bird seed and oats as a base
We also use
Millet
Rice
Bran flakes
Shelled hemp
100 percent wheat or corn cereals
Porridge made with rice milk
Pasta
Veggies-Peas, sweetcorn, pepper, carrots, broccoli, lettuce etc
Fruits-small bits of apple once a week
Seeds including pumpkin, linseed and sunflower
Naturals foods like their herbal stuff
Mealworms (very occasionally and for our nursing doe)
Little bits of toast (rare treat)
Peanuts
And whatever other mouse friendly stuff we happen to have
We also use
Millet
Rice
Bran flakes
Shelled hemp
100 percent wheat or corn cereals
Porridge made with rice milk
Pasta
Veggies-Peas, sweetcorn, pepper, carrots, broccoli, lettuce etc
Fruits-small bits of apple once a week
Seeds including pumpkin, linseed and sunflower
Naturals foods like their herbal stuff
Mealworms (very occasionally and for our nursing doe)
Little bits of toast (rare treat)
Peanuts
And whatever other mouse friendly stuff we happen to have
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458 Posts
Their main mix is;
1kg [email protected] rat mix
1kg Petshop Hamster mix
A bag of naturals treats of some kind
Two or Three good handfuls of Mealie Worms
250g Honey Dipped Banana Chips
And then I add to that whatever of the following I have hanging about the kitchen;
Raisins
Cranberries (dried)
Raw Cashew Kernels
Along with that they often get fresh veg, and sometimes something really naughty like porridge oats or dog biscuits. But I think its probably unbalanced on the protein side of things, so I'm re thinking at the moment. Oh, and all hamster mixes I use have all of the peanuts and sunflower seeds taken out (painstakingly) by hand. There are enough sunflower seeds in the rat mix.
1kg [email protected] rat mix
1kg Petshop Hamster mix
A bag of naturals treats of some kind
Two or Three good handfuls of Mealie Worms
250g Honey Dipped Banana Chips
And then I add to that whatever of the following I have hanging about the kitchen;
Raisins
Cranberries (dried)
Raw Cashew Kernels
Along with that they often get fresh veg, and sometimes something really naughty like porridge oats or dog biscuits. But I think its probably unbalanced on the protein side of things, so I'm re thinking at the moment. Oh, and all hamster mixes I use have all of the peanuts and sunflower seeds taken out (painstakingly) by hand. There are enough sunflower seeds in the rat mix.
I used to feed a food with commercial rat food as a base, but it became too expensive so I have reduced down to a more cost effective home mix and I havent noticed any difference in the mices condition. Now the base is oats and wild bird seed and for protein they have kibble, mostly specific kitten or puppy ones as it suggests it has extra vitamins etc for growth. They may also have bonio biscuits and recently I have found bonio 'milk' biscuits for puppies and they love them.
Nursing does and babies get huge amounts of lactol to try to give them the best start but I think the effects are seriously limited by genetics although sometimes some great mice have developed form nothing and I have put that down to lactol.
Nursing does and babies get huge amounts of lactol to try to give them the best start but I think the effects are seriously limited by genetics although sometimes some great mice have developed form nothing and I have put that down to lactol.
At the moment I have (what feels like) hundreds of babies so I am being a bit lazy and mixing it in dry with their food mix. Although when I have more time I will make it up into a liquid and leave some bread or oats to soak it up, or even some dog biscuits. Some groups of does love it and will eat it all as soon as its put in but others leave bits so its important to clear it away the next morning.
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458 Posts
do you just sprinkle it over their food? I bought some lactol today :3. Mine are fussy when it comes to squishy food though.
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721 Posts
Just spinkle it on.... I mix it in to mine as I have a large dustbin with their feed in.
i have been experimenting quite a bit with my mix at the moment as im fed up with waste...
i generally have on the go:
in order of quantity most to less
oats
allen and page rabbit mix
wild bird seed
protein - in the form of kitten kibbles usually
have been trying out layers pellets recently but they dont seem to like them at all, i'm also on the hunt for something cheaper than kitten kibbles but good enough quality....
have tried pregnant and nursing does on this mix i found in the supermarket mad by bill oddie i think for birds, a peanut and meal worm crumble, sounded pretty tasty for them
have tubs of sunflower seeds and linseeds for an extra boost every now and again, also feed lactol to mummas,
want to faze out the rabbit mix as most of it gets left, they seem to like the big orange carroty bits the most.. no where near here seems to sell ingrediants seperatley
i generally have on the go:
in order of quantity most to less
oats
allen and page rabbit mix
wild bird seed
protein - in the form of kitten kibbles usually
have been trying out layers pellets recently but they dont seem to like them at all, i'm also on the hunt for something cheaper than kitten kibbles but good enough quality....
have tried pregnant and nursing does on this mix i found in the supermarket mad by bill oddie i think for birds, a peanut and meal worm crumble, sounded pretty tasty for them
have tubs of sunflower seeds and linseeds for an extra boost every now and again, also feed lactol to mummas,
want to faze out the rabbit mix as most of it gets left, they seem to like the big orange carroty bits the most.. no where near here seems to sell ingrediants seperatley
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