I was just wondering.. is Reggie Rat Food a good choice for my girls? Most commercial diets have heaps of fatty foods like sunflower seeds in them, but Reggie Rat Food has none. It also comes highly recommended from ratsauce.com. I was just wondering what you all thought of it. My kids won't even look at a lab block, although there seem to be some sort of little lab block-type chunks in Reggie Rat Food that probably contain the same stuff..?

Ingredients
Ground wheat, toasted wheat, corn, flaked corn, whole oats, dehydrated alfalfa pellets, flaked field peas, flaked beans, dehulled soybean meal, straw pellets, oat middlings, soybean oil, wheat middlings, limestone, linseed oil, dicalcium phosphate, ferrous sulfate, choline chloride, vitamin E supplement, manganous sulfate, zinc sulfate, copper sulfate, vitamin A supplement, dicalcium pantothenate, FD&C red 40, nicotinic acid, menadione sodium bisulfite (source of vitamin K), biotin, FD&C yellow 6, FD&C yellow 5, vitamin B12 supplement, riboflavin, thiamin hydrochloride, selenium selenite, pyridoxine hydrochloride (source of vitamin B6), folic acid, FD&C blue 1, cobalt sulfate, cholecalciferol (source of vitamin D3), calcium iodate.

Guaranteed Analysis
Crude protein (min.) 12.5%, crude fat (min.) 3%, crude fiber (min.) 6%, crude fiber (max.) 8%, moisture (max.) 10%, calcium (min.) 0.3%, calcium (max.) 1%, phosphorus (min.) 0.3%, salt (min.) 0.4%, salt (max.) 0.9%, vitamin A 10,000 iu/kg.

As long as they don't turn funny colors! hehehe

I think anything would be healthier than Kaytee!!  But at $6.99 a bag I thought it was pricey (specially when it's still sitting in the tupperware container 4 months later!)  For about $10, the Suebee mix makes about 8 times the amount of food that comes in the one Reggie bag!  (It makes a HUGE amount, so we cut the recipe into 1/2 or 1/3)

Once the Reggie runs out, I will give the Suebee mix a try. Sounds interesting.  

http://www.geocities.com/suebee277/rat/diet.html

My ratties did not like Reggie Rat food, but they love Suebee's recipe!

I would just mix Reggie with the new food and then week by week, slowly phase Reggie out of the mix.

That's what I was afraid of, now I got a long project ahead of me. (that means more hour drives.)
Thanks.

Again, thanks for the plug -- but remember that my diet is NOT endorsed by the club. Any questions about it should really be addressed to me directly via private message.

The Reggie doesn't look too bad -- not awesome, but loads better than Kaytee, that's for sure! It doesn't contain ethoxyquin, which is great! My only major concern is that the protein is VERY low -- too low, to be honest.

Isn't it amazing how the same food really isn't the same?

I was just noticing on a roll of Mentos candies that the US and Australian ingredients were different. Similar, but not quite the same. Odd. Yes, I was bored.

The protein content of the UK version is much better... still a smidge low, but nor frighteningly so. Either way, both can be supplemented with protein-rich foods in small amounts (egg, fish, chicken, soy).

I use Reggie Rat here in Britain it is the best mix I have found..although it is expensive, I do add some protein treats though..but not too many!!
The girls LOVE it and eat all of it as soon as its put in the cage! Have to be careful not to feed too much

Personally i wouldn't touch that w/ a 20 foot pole!  LOL  Part of the reason is that I have over 20 rats and it would cost a fortune feeding that stuff!  

Personally I like my Nutro lite dog food with sunflower seeds, pasta, and fresh fruits and veggies every day.  Sometimes we give them rice and other meals like that.  Meat bones...  Things like that.  I try to cook one meal a day for the rat kids.

Really differnt things work for differnt people and differnt rats.  I don't like the idea of the unnatural brightly colored kibbles in any of my animals foods and refuse to feed them.  I try to stay as natrual as possible in all our foods (Charles and I as well as all the critters) .  I know it's hard to in this modern world but it's worth a shot atleast!

                             Emily~

I reread what I wrote below later and boy, do I go off on one!
But you'll be impressed with the skilful way I pull it back to almost being on-topic!  

The difference between Vicks Sinex in the US and Vicks Sinex in the UK cost a Scottish skier an Olympic Bronze medal which would have been the first ever won by a Briton.
In the US, Sinex contains methamphetamine, which is a banned substance - it doesn't here in the UK.
The skier had a cold and innocently bought Sinex in Salt Lake City, never thinking it was different.

He had the medal stripped from him, been banned from competition for up to two years and his reputation is in tatters having been branded a cheat.
The irony is, that even the IOC admit that the drug he took is not 'performance-enhancing'.

You can see how similar the containers for US and UK Vicks Sinex here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/winterolympics2002/hi/english/photo_galleries/newsid_1885000/1885991.stm

Sorry this went way off topic, but it perhaps serves as a reminder that we need to be mindful when discussing products and meds that there may be regional differences.

Paul

There is still debating on what protein content is right for rats.  Some breeders I know with successful show rats feed up to a 27% protein content mix and others feed MUCH lower- 14-15%.....

Corn is bad for them??