Diet
I feed my rats a homemade diet that my mentor Camarattery developed. If you are adopting babies from me you can purchase a bag of food, but if you'd like to mix your own this is the recipe i follow.
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3 parts flaked barley (do not use pearled barely! Its too hard and will break teeth!)
1 part sun flower seeds
1/2 part oat groats (Steel cut oats).
1/4 part Calf Mana
Or as an alternative to the Calf Mana: A bird pellet non-fruit flavor for medium birds. IE.. Zupreem, Harrison's, Kay Tee Exact, Roudybush. Or the bird pellet from Excello.
1/4 part raw peanuts (either in the shell or out of the shell)
1/4 part senior dog food of high quality. Only natural ingredients please! IE... Innova, Taste of the Wild, Chicken Soup For Dogs, Wellness, Pinnacle etc. Do not use garbage dog foods as these will give your rat tumors. IE... Old Roy, Science Diet, Iams, Alpo or anything from a grocery store or super store. Those are all really bad!b I personally use Taste of the Wild
Optional (I do this): For babies up to 3 months old and pregnant and nursing moms only add a "raw diet". If you wish.
Optional: A pinch of raw pumpkin seeds daily. Around 4 seeds per rat. This is a good treat food.
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If you are in my area, I go to Pickering Valley Feed on 113 in Lionville for almost all of my ingredients listed above.
Wet Mash
The mash is less of a recipe and more of a suggestion as far as what ingredients I throw in. My base is grain of some sort (rice, quonia, couscous, barley, etc.) and usually a couple different kinds. Cook the grain first. i don't drain any of the excess water, but instead start combining other ingredients.
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1) 2 parts Organic Regular Rolled Oats. (not oatmeal or quick oats, its cheapey processed and has no food value)
2) 2 parts Organic Millet (Protein and some fat)
3) 3/4 part Organic Brown Rice (Carbs)
4) 3/4 part Wheat Berries (Montana Bronze Chief or any other that looks good to the eye)
5) 3/4 part Organic Quonia White (Protein)
6) 3/4 part Organic Refined Couscous
7) 3/4 part organic Raw Sunflower Seeds (Fat)
8) 3/4 part Organic Pearled Barley
9) 1/2 part Organic Yellow Split Peas (not green it makes it look like snot) (Protein)
10) 1/2 part Organic Raisins (Iron) add a 1/2 part of dried cranberries if you want to!
11) Cinnamon Powder, Nutmeg, All Spice. Note on Cinnamon, dump tons in there like 1-3 TBS spoons as desired. (Cinn is for circulation, libido and anti parasite cant be over done.)
Mix it all together in a bowl
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Mix and match as desired!