Hoarding and nutrition

[Calviness]

Here's the deal.  Ave and Sadie are my first rats who have ever hoarded stuff. It's cute, but now I'm discovering a problem.  I feed them Suebee's mix, add nutro on some nights - lab blocks on others.  I also supplement with fresh fruits and veggies and other healthy foods.

Ave has decided that all lab blocks, noodles, and dog kibbles must go in the red hammock.  Problem is, she won't let the boys go into this hammock.  Problem is...she won't let the boys into the hammock.  There's no fighting or anything...she just blocks their entrance when they try to climb in, and they wander off.  (They're pretty mellow boys).  Sadie can come in, but that's it.  And Ave spends most of her non playing time in the hammock.  So I'm worried the boys might not be getting enough protein.

And I can't take them out and feed them lab block/nutro separately, because the boys usually go for the grain stuff first and don't eat the lab block/nutro til everything else is gone and they're hungry enough to try it.  I used to just leave the lab blocks/nutro in the cage until they had eaten some...they didn't get anymore Suebee mix until I felt they had eaten enough of the other stuff.  Now they don't have access to the lab/block nutro.

Any suggestions?

[knuckles]

I shouldn't laugh, but what will they think of next to drive us crazy!! 

ok, brainstorming here.   Could you maybe put the boys back up from playtime a little earlier than Ave??  maybe find other sources of protient to supplement them with? 

[Sunilata]

Doesn't she EVER leave the hammock? I constantly am cleaning food out of my girls' hammock, solely because it bugs me that they are sleeping (and probably peeing) on their food stash. I just plop it back in the dish and it takes them a few hours to move it back into the hammock again. Of course, I have some extra time on my hands to fuss over my ratties like that and compulsively tidy their cage...hehe

[Calviness]

Doesn't she EVER leave the hammock? I constantly am cleaning food out of my girls' hammock, solely because it bugs me that they are sleeping (and probably peeing) on their food stash. I just plop it back in the dish and it takes them a few hours to move it back into the hammock again.

She does leave the hammock, but as soon as I put them back in the bowl, she's moving them again. And I mean RIGHT after I move them.

knuckles, I will try to stagger their playtimes so the boys get some time alone in the cage. 

Do you guys think it might help if I kept two bowls of food constantly running?  Maybe then she'll just claim the contents of one of them?

Oh, yeah, it's okay to laugh.  It's exasperating, but it's cute too.  "Do YOU live in the cage?  No!  Then how bout YOU give ME the food, and I'll decide where it goes!"

[Kati33]

Get a lab block feeder- I posted not too long ago about one I made from an adapted bunny hay feeder, I know LSR has made some out of little wire mesh baskets (but they go on the outside of the cage, making them fair game for my dog!). It makes it so they can't get the lab blocks out to go stash but rather have to eat them through the mesh. Confused? Do a search for a picture of LSR's (I don't have a photo of mine).