Wanting to add more to their mix, suggestions?

[rodent_girl_1985]

I drawing a blank, and need suggestions please. I feed my rats an all (well, almost all) organic mix. Here is a list of ingredients that is in their mix:
Organic Puffed Rice
Organic Puffed Wheat
Organic Extra thick Rolled Oats
Organic Veggie Pasta
Organic Flax Seed Grain Cereal
Organic Dried Fruit
Blue Buffula Senior dog food

I'm heading to the store in about an hour to get supplies for thier mix, but want to add other ingredients. Any suggestions? I do prefer the ingredients to be organic, or at least all natural.
Thanks!

[MiniMuffin]

How about some "just veggies" mix or soy nuts?

[rodent_girl_1985]

How about some "just veggies" mix or soy nuts?

I'm not familiar with Just Veggies, is it like Just Tomatoes? If so, I use their dried fruit in my mix.
I tried soy nuts in their mix a few months ago, and one of my girls got really bad skin from it, I think it was too much protein. Once I took all the nuts out her skin cleared up. Kinda weird actually.

[MiniMuffin]

Yes, it's the Just Tomatoes brand, it has corn, peas, carrots, peppers and maybe tomatoes in it. I get it for my birds, but added a bit to the container of Suebee's that I had sitting out too.

[Lilija]

Couple handfuls of black oil sunfower seeds, go over well with my crew.  The all black kind that you find in the wild bird food section.  I also use puffed millet sometimes, or regular (food grade) millet, for variety.

[strangeduck]

I recommend the sunflower seeds as well.  Just make sure they aren't the ones for humans that are salted and roasted.  But not too much, because you don't want to give them too much protein.  My other suggestion would be raw peanuts, with the shell.  They seem to have a great time breaking into the shell to get the nuts, it's a bit messy, but it's nutrition and enrichment all in one.

[Addicted2Rats]

I thought that you weren't supposed to feed raw nuts of any kind?  I've been giving my guys roasted peanuts in the shell that aren't salted.

Deb

[MiniMuffin]

I think it's raw legumes (which would include peanuts), not nuts. I'm not sure though.

I'm not very comfortable giving my rats food intended for wild birds, because it's just not very high quality. My budgie has sun flower seeds in his seed mix (very high quality) that he doesn't eat, so I just pick them out and save them for the other birds and rats!

[chiropteragirl]

Roasted pumpkin seeds are a hit with my rats. Same with dried vegetables flakes, (basically the same thing as Just Veggies) sunflower seeds, and whole grain kernels of any kind. (quinoa, spelt, kamut, brown rice, millet, etc.)

I believe rats shouldn't eat raw peanuts, but it would probably be fine if they were roasted.

Do you use the kind of Just Fruits that has pieces of mango in it? If you do, and you own male rats, you shouldn't feed them any. Mango contains the same chemical in it as oranges, (d-limonene, I think?) that gives male rats kidney cancer.