Hello all. I just registered here after browsing around the forums for quite some time searching specific topics. As such a noob (on the forums, not to rats), I hate to ruffle feathers, but here goes.
My girlfriend and I adopted 3 girls yesterday from the Riley County Humane Society. They're quite adorable. I'll post pics ASAP if there's a "showroom" sort of section around here. Anyways... we already have 2 girls (Ages 4 months and 8 months) who are normally fed the Mazuri 23% protein blocks from PetSmart and have no problems. Problem: We live in kiiindd of a small town (27.5k-ish people) in Kansas, where there is only one local pet store with "bulk blocks" for 80 cents a lb as their only rat food, which I assume are garbage. We are nearly out of Mazuri. However, we are moving in 4 days, back to a major metro area, but don't have enough food to last us till then. So then, we adopted these girls in a town about an hour away(Manhattan, KS if anyone is familiar with the area) after meeting a rep for the humane society at a pet store (that ironically enough, doesn't sell rats; only fish). We decided to check the store out to see if they had any quality foods. We found Oxbow Regal Rat there,
however the bag had expired over a year ago
. So, they had a bunch of stuff I'd not heard of before from a company called Sun Seed. Being the overly protective rat owners that we are, we scanned the label and found that it seems to have a respectable ingredient list.
Here it is for anyone interested: Dehulled Soybean meal, wheat middlings, ground corn, ground wheat, molasses, soybean oil, calcium carbonate, ground oats, dehydrated alfalfa, salt, calcium propionate, DL-methionine (an essential amino acid), menadione, dimethylpyrimidinol bisulfite (source of vit. K), choline chloride, brewer's yeast, yucca schidigera, yeast culture, cobalt carbonate, copper sulfate, ferrous carbonate, Manganese Oxide, Calcium Iodate, zinc sulfate, zinc oxide, vitamin A supplement, vitamin D3 supplement, vitamin E supplement, pyridoxine hydrochloride, folic acid, thiamin mononitrate, niacin supplement, calcium pantothenate, vitamin B12 supplement, riboflavin supplement.
Crude Protein: 22%
Crude Fat: 5%
Crude Fiber: 6%
Yeah, I know it has ground corn and alfalfa, but the corn is the third ingredient as opposed to the second in Mazuri. Mazuri also has the alfalfa. The fat in the Sun Seed is 1.5% lower and the protein is 1% lower (though still a bit high IMHO) than in Mazuri 23%. It seemed decent for $5 for a 2 lb bag, so we picked it up. After doing a bit of searching on here, I found quite a few negative opinions of this product, and for good reason. It seems that, according to some old posts of ingredient lists, the first ingredient used to be ground corn. My issue with Harlan is that with their 2016, 2018, and 2019 formulas, corn is the second ingredient. Additionally, it is lacking soybean meal, which I've read in a few different places, that soy helps reduce the risk of mammary tumors in females. Oxbow has soybean meal (and no corn), but it is the fifth ingredient on the list. So, what am I saying in this uber-long winded first post you might ask. Well, after reading over and over again, that the only good options available in regards to lab blocks are Mazuri, Harlan, and Oxbow, I think that it seems entirely logical to add this re-formulated "Sunthing Special" to that exclusive list.
Disclaimer: No, I don't work for Sun Seed. I doubt any employee of the company would go to such ridiculous lengths as myself to make comparisons amongst top quality lab blocks. This only applies to the lab blocks, not any of the seed mixes or other junk they sell.
Disclaimer #2: No, I'm not a troll. I'll post pics of our girls in the morning. My username is the same one I use on a number of other forums.
