# Grain Mix for rats?



## CherryDawn89 (Aug 25, 2012)

I was wondering what grains would be good to put in your rats' diet. I honestly don't feel comfortable giving my rats store bought food because of the chemicals. We have a lot of natural grocery stores here in Eugene (where I live) and they sell organic seeds and grains in the bulk sections. I don't know what rats should and should not eat when it comes to that so any suggestions would be helpful.


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## Honeydew (Jun 16, 2013)

My rat loves Grape-Nut cereal. It's barley wheat, mostly. Pumpkin seeds are a favorite as well.


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## JLSaufl (Jan 20, 2013)

I am not an advocate of seed mix at all, but for some variety I mix some in with their oxbow. It's probably only about 3% (for 1 3lb bag of oxbow, there's 1 cup of seed, broken pasta and puffed millet cereal mixed in) I get the sunseed brand and pick out the lab blocks and corn that's in it and give those to my parents chickens. The like it a lot. But, they eat the oxbow first.


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## roaringsnail (Aug 1, 2013)

It's been found that with seed mix, the rats pick out their favorites and end up with an unbalanced diet. They tend to crave what is less nutritional for them. In addition, seed mix from the grocery store that isn't specifically designed for rats. May be nutritionally deficient. I use Harlan Teklad lab blocks. They're considered to be one of the very best foods you can use. I supplement daily with fruit and veggies. Dry pasta (or cooked for that matter) are great. The dry is great for filing down their teeth.


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## Isamurat (Jul 27, 2012)

Seed mixes only lead to selective eating when you feed it adlib, its perfectly possible to get it balanced and have the rats eating all of it. I've been feeding a home made grain and seed based diet for years now, it just requires a bit of discaplin and a good feel for when your rat is 'right'. I'd recommend looking into the Shunamite diet CherryDawn, its a good set of guidelines to get you on track, just make sure you use the latest one, the one recorded on this forum is a fair bit out of date now.

Also whilst rats enjoy gnawing they dont need to do it to file down there teeth, they do that by bruxing, its a fairly popular myth that rats need to gnaw or their teeth get overgrown.


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## Famous Amos (May 23, 2013)

Rats that pick their favs put is never a reason not to use grains. 

The human who wont let the finish the rest and they always always do, before refilling the bowl, that's the problem.

It's very simple to let them finish. Grain diets are very very good and compete. And the freshest way to feed.

I like using 
1 part flaked barley
1 part sunflower
1/4 part peanut
1/4 part oat groat
1/4 calf manna or bird pellet if you can't get manna.

That's a recipes made by a small animal Nutritionalist with a degree. So it's complete and has the proper analysis.


Sent from Petguide.com Free App


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## JudeWriley (Aug 1, 2007)

Famous Amos said:


> Rats that pick their favs put is never a reason not to use grains.
> 
> The human who wont let the finish the rest and they always always do, before refilling the bowl, that's the problem.


Heh, my rats would never "finish the rest." During an experiment once, I found they liked using "the rest" as bedding rather than food...


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## cagedbirdsinging (May 28, 2012)

JudeWriley said:


> Heh, my rats would never "finish the rest." During an experiment once, I found they liked using "the rest" as bedding rather than food...


You didn't give them enough of a chance. Healthy rats will not willingly starve themselves. When they are hungry and "the rest" is the only available food, they'll eat it. It could take a few entire days for them to finally give in and eat, but they WILL eat it when they are hungry enough and given no other choice. They must be treated like children in that matter. If they're hungry enough, they'll eat what is given to them.


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## Dinoclor (Mar 2, 2013)

I feed my rats a Shunamite type diet, and they do end up eating it all. First goes the cereal, then the rabbit food pellets, then the few raisins, then the dog kibble, then the pearl barley and oats (Which they graze on the entire time too) and then the pasta, which they DO eat but only once there is no other food left. I don't feed in a bowl, I scatter feed once a day, sometimes more if their cage has been cleaned. I tried bowl feeding but they only pooped in it and peed in it and became ridiculously lazy during the day and omg active in the night.


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