not to be pushy about it, (for those of you who've read random chatter), but if somebody's feeding kaytee or seed mix, what do i tell them?

most people are NOT receptive to hearing about making their own food mixes.  what's the best single thing (or maybe combination of just two things) i can tell them?  nutro lite?  nutro lite and.. total cereal?

i'm asking because i'm probably getting a job at a pet store, and i know this is going to come up.  thank you!

   

I find that usually I can convince people to switch over to Suebee's because it is so easy to make and you can pretty much find everything at the supermarket. It helps to mention how it'll end up being CHEAPER than commercial seed mixes because you can spend like $20 for a HUGE batch that can last you for a month or two (depends on the number of rats). That always gets them

I have a harder time with Harlen just because you can't get it locally and you have to order online.

There's nothing wrong with KAYTEE!!! Read this if you don't belive me!

http://forums.rmca.org/ikonboard.cgi?s=3ea02db66598ffff;act=ST;f=2;t=1737

Maybe some people don't have the time to go out and get all the right ingredients and then mix them together. Maybe it's just easier to go out and buy some.

I haven't actually followed any of the reports on Kaytee, I don't think its available here anyway. The only commercially available rat food I've seen in the UK is reggie, which isn't that good for your rats anyway but miles better than kaytee, by the sounds of things.  Even if it WAS the only thing I could find, I'd make my own mix. It's not hard. All the things I feed are bought for the household ANYWAY so it's not like any extra effort is used. Pasta spirals, shredded wheat, shreddies (or any other cereal along those lines) potatoes etc. They're all easy to find things.

Has anyone wriiten to Kaytee about this, and asked for an official response?  Since the company claims to do research and care for animals, I wonder if they have an official position on the use of ethoxyquin.

I did write to Kaytee about cedar and pine and got NO response back, so I have no reason to believe they care at all about what is good or healthy for animals.  

I always have in interest in how a company handles consumer questions, and what official policies may be on disputed ingredients/procedures/testing etc.  The response, both in tone and content, often tells you more about a company than any other source.

Out of curiosity, why does anyone believe what a company says about their own product anyway? Do people HONESTLY believe that they are going to say their product is bad? Even the tobacco company's official line is "we aren't really as bad as people say we are".

If people question something, they need to do their own research... of find a source of information that they believe. With just about everything I purchase that comes into my home I have a "standard rule" that I follow. If the majority of the reviews like it, I'll try it. You will rarely find anything that everyone agrees on... Even air... though it is necessary for every living thing on Earth... you still find people that say "air is bad... breathe pure oxygen"  :huh:

Personally, I refuse to buy canola oil... too much bad info about it.... I won't buy margerine either... I use olive oil and butter, keep it natural....

Overall... I agree with Suebee. If it's not ok for humans, it's not ok for my pets. Though I will say, I don't eat the dog or cat food, but it's the best I can find for them, and I do feed them real meat. I feed Suebees mix and baby food to my rats... and I'm desperately trying to get the new gerbs off the Kaytee mix they came with (they started out as fosters and came with a bag and a half of Kaytee Gerbil mix). I have been putting other things in their mix, in order to switch them over.... but they eat the Kaytees and leave the rest.  

At my kids elementary school, one of the teachers has mice, and she keeps them on pine. Breaks my heart. She has been given information about how bad it is, but she won't switch... since she doesn't see that they are breathing funny she doesn't see that there is a problem. She also feeds them Kaytee.  My son's class HAD a hampster. It was on pine and/or cedar, depending on what parent brought in new bedding... it came down with horrible breathing problems and died...  I felt horrible for the kids, but I warned the teacher that it would happen at the beginning of the year when I told her to put them on ANYTHING but pine or cedar.

Some people...  

Just tell your customers what you know, and hope they do the right thing.

so, crud!  cuz i mean, wouldn't i get in trouble for recommending things you can't even find at the store?  i figured nutro was good because you can get that there...

i don't even remember what goes into suebee's mix.  i've been using this batch for so long!

seriously, if you were working at a pet store, would you hand the person a list of the ingredients to suebee's mix, and then direct them to the nutro lite?

that may be what i have to do.  i'm scared and confused.

working in a pet store is kind of like adopting out kids, except some of them get good homes and some of them get kept in skinner boxes on cedar bedding.  

Obviously quality foods for animals can be made without ethoxyquin, so I don't understand why Kaytee, even if they refuse to respond to concerned customers, can't take it out. They may already get a ton of business, but they'd get a whole lot more if their product was safe. I may not want to eat what my animals eat, but I'm not going to give them something with an ingredient that I *couldn't* eat safely.

anaphylaxis: Try telling people that the only thing they'll probably have to buy is the Nutro dog food in Suebee's mix, because the rest of the ingredients most people have at their house, in one form or another, especially if it's a family with kids (lots of different kinds of cereals and pastas, always a good idea with kids). That's what worked with my parents when I wanted the dog food -- I told them that basically everything else we had already.

I recommend feeding your rats Nutro Lite Dog Food.  Make sure it has 14% protein in it.  All you have to do is feed them 1/4 cup per rat each day.  It smells good, kinda like Cheerios, and my rats eat it right up!  I didn't want to make my own food mix, either.  This has been recommended to me by many rat experts on different forums.

i'm nearly positive they don't have oxbow.  i'm trying to get everyone's permission (manager, suebee, debbie) to print things about cedar and pine, and also suebee's mix.  it's hard because it mentions "total" cereal (brand name), and Nutro Lite, which even tho they sell it, they probably don't want to specifically endorse.  i don't know.  i'm gonna have to just wait and see..

I do know of someone who did email Kaytee and get a response.
They replied that the actual concentration of ethoxyquin is too small to count.  Yeah...Well other research shows otherwise. There IS something very wrong with feeding Kaytee lab blocks or seed diet (this itself is all ready like us eating fried burgers everyday) if you look at other sources beyond the company.
This stuff was orginally used as an herbacide/pesticide (can't remember which).  And like Suebee said, it's not even approved for human consumption.  There are very few products you can find them (such as spices-but really, how much do we ingest and look at our body weight proportion compared to rats).