Which small critter for me?

[Suki Wingy]

Make sure if you want a sociable pet to get them young or from someone who's raised them since they were small. There is a huge difference. My brother holds his since their eyes open and they all LOVE people. If they've been riding on your shoulder for an hour and you put them back in their cage and come back 5 minutes later they'll do anything they can to crawl back up your arm and sit with you. We had a couple of himi girls that figured out how to twist open the little circle thingy on the top of the terrarium and get out.

[Blackrose]

I'm going to look around to see who/what around here has rats availible. I won't be getting some for another couple of months so I'm in no rush. There is a rat rescue in Ohio that does transports to other states (Indiana included). That will be my main focus. There is a local feed depot (where I bought my ferrets) and they take wonderful care of their animals and if they have ratties, I'll look there. Petsmart doesn't handle their animals, so while they have Ratties on occasion, they would be wild things.

Ratties need variety moreso than a staple food. I give mine a little cat food, lab blocks from petsupplies plus (but I really hate Kaytee brands), and a seed mix as their dry staple right now.

I was given a good link for a homemade seed mix, so that is most likely what I'll use as the mixture. I looked at what Petsmart has availible again and not under rat foods ( ) they had the Katee Forti-Diet blocks, and this Mazuri block food. Unless Buckles carries any block foods, that will be what I'll have to choose from. Here is the Mazuri's ingredients:

Ingredients: dehulled soybean meal, ground corn, ground wheat, wheat middlings, soybean oil, cane molasses, fish meal, ground oats, porcine meat meal, dehydrated alfalfa meal, dried beet pulp, wheat germ, brewers dried yeast, calcium carbonate, salt, dried whey, dicalcium phosphate, monocalcium phosphate, calcium propionate (a preservative), ground soybean hulls, menadione dimethylpyrimidinol bisulfite (vitamin K), animal fat preserved with BHA, choline chloride, corn gluten meal, dried yucca shidigera extract, DL-methionine, cholecalciferol (vitamin D3), vitamin A acetate, pyridoxine hydrochloride, d-alpha tocopheryl acetate (natural source vitamin E), thiamin mononitrate, folic acid, nicotinic acid, calcium pantothenate, riboflavin, cyanocobalamin (vitamin B12), manganous oxide, zinc oxide, ferrous carbonate, copper sulfate, zinc sulfate, calcium iodate, cobalt carbonate.

Guaranteed analysis: crude protein (min.) 23%, crude fat (min.) 6.5%, crude fiber (max.) 4%, ash (max.) 8%, vitamin E (min.) 25 IU/lb.

I know that the corn and the alfalfa meal isn't good.....but is everything else okay? I figured this brand would be the lesser of two evils as it has soybean meal as the first ingredient.

If not, would I be able to feed them that homemade seed mixture along with some high quality dog food (Innova Senior)?

[IRescue452]

That's about as good as it gets with lab blocks

[Christmas_Hamster]

I feed my rats and now my (fat) mouse mazuri and they are doing fine on it!

[Blackrose]

That's about as good as it gets with lab blocks

I feed my rats and now my (fat) mouse mazuri and they are doing fine on it!

Okay, thanks!