Posted by:
morphdepot
at Thu Apr 5 08:18:40 2007 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by morphdepot ]
Harlan,
A man after my own heart and one who is alot braver than me to lay it out here in the forum. I started a similar reply to this post but chickened out and didn't send it because I didn't want to deal with the potential fall out. But you have helped me grow a backbone.
I have a breeding colony of about 250 breeder female rats and I feed both rodent block and dog food. In my own side by side comparison (one rack on rodent chow, another on dog food) the rats actually MUCH prefer the dog food, grow faster, with more fat. Some may argue that the higher fat is not good for your snakes, but I have found feeders higher in fat really brighten and shine up your snakes and significantly improves shedding. I think your comments on the red dye are right on too. I have NEVER seen any scientifically validated study that would support any adverse effects of red dye.
There are a couple of things to keep in mind from my experience if you plan to feed dog food to rodents.
Rodents don't need the high fat content supplied by many dog foods and actually I have found mine do better on those feeds with fat contents under 10%. Secondly, they do not need the very high protein contents of the Hi-pro dog foods. I think you are wasting your money buying anything with a protein content over 21%. If anything was going to do harm to your rats kidneys I think it might be a long term diet of very high protein food. Protein is the hardest thing for your kidneys to process as it creates the most nitrogen durng metabolism. Another thing to keep in mind is that overly high protein levels actually increase the smell of the urine produced by the rats as it contains more excreted nitrogen in the form of urea. Probably the most important thing to keep in mind is that there is some research that suggests that diets high in soy can reduce the fertility of your rat breeding colony by increasing the levels of estrogen produced. This is why you don't see soy bean meal in any commercially produced rodent chow (at least that I am aware of), but many dog foods have it (especially the Hi-pro types).
The brand of dog food I have been using for the last year as a supplement to harlan rodent block is the "Doggie Bag" brand produced by Tractor Supply. It is a larger chunck style food and as I recall (without looking at the label) it is 18% protien and 8% fat content with no soy. It is a low protein, low fat dog food that probably wouldn't be too good for your dog, but rats seem to do very well on it. I buy it for just under $9 bucks a 40lbs bag (compared to $10.50 33lb bag of Harlan)so it is about 30% cheaper. Different strokes for different folks and I am not trying to offend anyone, but I produce ALOT of rats and feed alot of dog food, not because I have to, but because I actually think they do better than on rodent block alone.
Best of luck and good herping to everyone.
Grant Whitmer
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RE: Rat food/dog food - morphdepot, Thu Apr 5 08:18:40 2007