I had a vet with over 50 years experience research the rodents' nutritional needs for me. He came back and told me that lab block does not have enough protein or fat content to be a good diet for rats, and mice need higher levels of both than the rats do. He recommended dog food as the best diet for them. I was breeding rats at that time and feeding a seed mixture that I was mixing myself. I switched to a cheap dog food, and the litter sizes and growth rate both increased drastically. Later, I switched to lab block since I found a good deal, and I saw no changes in my rat colony which consisted of 4,000 rats or my mouse colony which consisted of 1,000 mice. We have a Blain's farm & fleet local to us, and the food cost me appx. $15 per 50 lb bag and contains no red dye 40. This is what I feed as a regular diet to my rodents now. My rodents do great, and I've been feeding my rodents to my snakes for 6 years now with no ill effects. I would not recommend Ol'roy food for rodents though. I tried it years ago when I could not get my usually food, and I found out that rats would rather eat each other than eat that food...NOT GOOD!

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