Goosemoose Pet Portal

Ok, so I've seen multiple posts of foods not to feed, but not of what everyone feeds other than lab block. I have 2 young boys, they're only a few months old. I mix Mazuri lab blocks, and also a steady availability of Regal Rat. They like both. I give them seeds once a week for a treat, and they will hunt down yogies anywhere  :BlueDumboSmile:. What kinds of fun foods do you feed your little monsters? I've done grapes, which they enjoy, one loves toast, lettuce, and has a penchant for stealing macaroni and cheese or french fries right off my plate! I was told a no no on any citrus foods, not sure why? And I try to stay away from high fat stuff. I also have the list of no no foods from on here. I saw something about pasta, not sure if it was cooked or not, didn't know if maybe the bird pasta mixes were an idea I could use. Any help would be greatly appreciated so I know what I can and can't, as well as fun things I may have never thought of!  ;D

My girls love basically any type of fruit/veggie. I feed them lab blocks, and a modified suebee's diet with cheerios, oats, total cereal, puffed rice and puffed wheat.

They also enjoy grapes, carrots, broccoli, hard boiled egg, and of course yogies.  They go BANANAS for, well, bananas, too!

Dry pasta is a favorite - if you can get whole wheat pasta, it's even better. Cooked is fine, but they do like the crunching. I have one rat (appropriately named Odin) who loves raw rolled oats. They'll all have different tastes.

Some other fun things to give them as treats:
A hard boiled egg, in the shell - they'll smell it and know something's in there, but they'll go crazy getting to it. I always have to eventually give them a starter crack, though.
Corn on the cob - cooked or fresh (not dried, though).
Cow's milk isn't great for them, but if you have soy or rice milk, it is cute to give them a tiny bowl of cereal & milk, since they'll grab the cereal bits first, then come back and drink the milk.

Citrus foods aren't in themselves bad - there is a chemical in the peel & pith of citruses called D-Limonene, and it causes kidney damage in male rats only. The best info on this is here: http://www.rmca.org/Articles/oj.htm
It's not a HUGE deal, but better to just avoid it, though if you wanted, you could peel & rinse orange sections without the skin. (It is also in mangoes, which I learned only after a summer where I ate a bunch of mango and let my boys eat the leftovers. Oops.)

When I lived alone, I pretty much just let my rats clean my dinner plate every night. I actually trained them to tolerate slightly spicy food, since I always put red pepper in my pasta sauce.

 ;D  Thanks so much! I'm excited to try the hard boiled egg thing lol. Both boys seem to enjoy little pieces of that so far. Going grocery shopping this week, so it should be fun after that. Thanks for the info so far.  :BlueDumboSmile:

I skimmed this quickly....but it doesn't look like anyone has mentioned a rat favorite: PEAS

I'm so excited to try all of this! I know it might sound cheesy, but with them in their new cage, I can see them interacting more and getting along great, so to see them trying new foods and being so active is awesome.  :yelcutelaugh: I gave them some tomato tonight, tiny pieces bc of the acidity, not sure how it would affect them. They loved it, Cheerio climbed up the door onto my head and tried to jump into a, thankfully empty, plate (yeah I'm shorter than my cage lol). Thank you all so much for these ideas!

Some other things that might not have been mentioned: cooked beans (kidney, chick peas, etc.) and packaged tofu. My girls love them.

My boys love stringy things like cooked spaghetti and bean shoots. We play this game where I hold one end and then they'll chase them until they catch the treat and haul it off to the cage. It lasts longer with spaghetti or noodles because it breaks as they pull it so they have to keep coming back again and again :D

my boys really like peas and lettuc  :wink5:

Butter Beans!
and WHOLE hard boiled egg with shell
FROZEN blueberries
corn ON the cob  :BlueDumboSmile:

Yay ;D I've never been so excited about going to the commissary. LOL. I will be getting lots of fun stuff. I have peas, brocolli, eggs, and cooked beans. I'm going to definitely be giving them some of this. They love potatoes, macaroni, grapes, and when they can managed to intercept a spoonful with rogue licks, ice cream. I've eased off of the seed treat and yogies because of the sugar and fat content. While I'm excited for them to grow and get bigger, I don't want fat rats. Thanks again for all this help. At least I know what to add to my yes and no list that I have on the fridge (I know, I'm a dork- it's just a habit to be extremely organized)  ::) Thanks again! Please keep suggestions a-comin'.

TREATS: I give my boys..Hard boiled eggs, boiled chicken, cheerios, baby cereal, fruit & veggies babyfood, piece of plain rice cake, a french fry here and there, any junk food they steal from me when I am not looking, pizza crust here and there, yogies, peas, corn, WATERMELON, apples, grapes, kale, tomatos, & dry rat mixes.

Dinner: I dont feed lab blocks, well they dont like lab blocks. I feed a fresh diet. I cook them white& brown rice everynight mixed with fresh peas in & out of the pods, and thawed veggie mix. They get a few different dinners I like to mix it up for them. they will get peas, corn, carrots, lima beans, rice and mashed potatos like they had last night or they get kale chopped fine mixed with a vegie mix!

Breakfast: I cut my crew fresh Melon, grapes, berry mix, peaches, pineapple w/ warm baby cereal. Or they get wheat puffs, total, corn puffs, bagel pieces, scrambled eggs(depends if i eat them or not) w/ warm baby cereal w/ a lil honey.

I know they sound spoiled but I swear to you it keeps them going. you dont have to worry about them getting fat b/c its all natural & good for them. However, I still do offer them lab blocks but they dont eat them at all. Hope this helps ya.

Jenn & the Crew

Wow. I won't show my fiance this, he'll want to come live and eat at your house! I'm glad to hear that they eat those things regularly, as I tend to eat pretty healthy and wanted to ensure it was good for the boys. They're getting spoiled, my mother is in love with them, they had cucumbers, tomatoes, corn, and potato last night, as well as cheerios and special k flakes. Thanks for the great ideas, sounds yummy!  ;D

Absolute favorites in this house are PEAS and more peas...an entire corn on the cob...it's fun to watch them eat it too.  Baby cereals, yogurt, tofu...also, I haven't tried them yet because I needed to ask if they were alright for ratties, but Gerber makes these little treats, for babies obviously, that are called finger foods.  They are like puffed things and fruit flavored thingies...also, baby teething nooks, the vegetable ones.  And dog greenies, they really like those too.

I didn't know you could give them greenies! My dog loves them so we get them all the time.  :rattysmiley:

My boys are really picky!  They don't eat watermelon, carrots, tomatoes, or even yogies!  Picky things.   :P  I'm in the process of finding out what they like and don't like.

Moz loves his honey nut cheerios and when they're especially good i will go out and get them a honey and oat granola bar, they dont get the hole bar though... just a corner cause its a little sticky and fattening. I dont do that often but its got to be their all time favorite :) they also love their cucumber slices :D

Crunch doesn't care for cucumber, they both love tomatoes. Cheerio eats just about anything, he's the food theif, but today they had grapes and blueberry slices, and Cheerio decided he didn't' care for the texture, only Crunch ate it. He loves special k and cheerios too, both of them do. I got nipped for a yogie the other day, on accident. They're so funny when they're intent on grabbing. Doing carrots later today, and bought some frozen fruit that I plan on defrosting, giving that to them too.

I will fix myself a big bowl of cheerios in soy milk and I'll share it with the ratties while I'm eating. They love it. But they get a little stingy and start trying to pull my spoon away most of the time.  :yelcutelaugh:

Lol. Yeah, I have silverware swipers too. Is it ok to give them greenies? I knew that some liked nylabones, just didn't know what was safe for them. Right now I am having an issue in they are enjoying their supplemental foods too much and not eating their regal rat   ::) brats. I also supplement with Mazuri, but I noticed that it's second ingredient is corn (although I had to rebag my regal rat, so I'm not sure exactly what the first ingredient is- need to google it). Does anyone have a specific preference? My boys are getting special k, cheerios, fresh fruit, fresh veggies, some protein. Just wanted to make sure that they're doing ok food wise. I do filtered water for them, and they much prefer to run off and hide their mazuri, just didn't know if since they weren't showing much interest in the regal rat, if it was ok to mix both and let them pick. Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks for all the suggestions. It's been great exposing them to new foods, lol, texture has shown to be an issue with certain foods  :yelcutelaugh: Corn, mashed potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes have all gone over well, so have pineapple, different colored grapes, peaches, honeydew and cantaloupe, as well as strawberries and blueberries.

My girls eat lab blocks are are happy to do so but they also love sweet potato baby food and rice cakes- they go batty over those rice cakes (brown rice with temari and seaweed). They also get to lick whatever is left on my dinner plates and left-over rice (there's always some stuck to the inside of the bowl when I make it). They also enjoy uncooked pasta.

 I thought that chopped carrots and and apple slices  would be a big hit  but they are are completely ignored..... unless I put big pieces of them into a treat clip or cabob thingy. If they feel like they are stealing something or have to work  hard at getting some then they love 'em. Peas are the favorite treat here. Boy do they have me trained!  ;D