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Food consumption rate by rats.... any got an accurate number?....

MARIASMAN May 16, 2004 03:26 AM

How many adult breeding rats would it take to consume a full 50 pounds of dog food in one month?

Replies (7)

DeMak May 16, 2004 09:57 AM

Is this what you are looking for?

DeMak
Rat info

ballfan May 16, 2004 11:26 AM

This is excellent!

mariasman May 16, 2004 02:15 PM

Yeah, that'll help, but I've heard that rats will consume a large quantity of dog food vs. law chow as the lab chow is more nutritious... just wondering what this difference is.

DeMak May 16, 2004 06:10 PM

I'm not sure. I've never weighed feed. The reason I used lab chow was the size of the pellet was a good fit with the hoppers I used. Although i don't have hard numbers to back this up, I thought the waste with the smaller dog food, far outweighed the price difference...

Aside from that, I'm not sure that dog food is any less nutritious.

DeMak

Sonya May 16, 2004 08:07 PM

>>Is this what you are looking for?
>>
>>DeMak
>>Rat info

The thing will be finding the kcal/mg of the foods.
I really would take the info with a grain of salt since some points of information seem OFF at best.
1. I have not had many rats with a breeding life of 1.5yrs Mine tend to go 8 months to a year average actual breeding.
2. Mature at 13 wks? I don't like to breed mine much before that but what are they saying? That they can't breed til then? Mine will breed way sooner. And they certainly aren't full sized by then. Though that may account for .....
3. Wts of 200gms for females and 300gms for males.....okay, at 13 wks that is about what mine way. But my mature females are about 300gms to 400gms and my males are well over a pound....going 600gms at least. Or maybe the lower weights is because they are weaning them .....
4.Weaning at 21dys and so they aren't growing as well. I wean at 4 or 5 weeks. and by then they are usually 100 grams.

So, I am wondering what the consumption is really.
I will say......Mine don't care for the lab blocks I have tried on them and the ones (mazuri and harlan) that some have said rats REALLY love, I can't get here. Go fig.
-----
Sonya

Haven't we warned you about tampering with the structure of a chaotic system?
Mrs. Neutron

Lucien May 16, 2004 10:11 PM

I can't really give exacts on each rat by weight. What I do know is this... In a 24 hr period my colony of 15 adult rats get 32 ounces of food... a mixed bag of cracked corn, rolled oats, sunflower seeds and dog food. Thats a little over 2 ounces of food per rat... per day. If you take into account that I buy a 25 lb bag of dog food.. 25lbs of Sunflower seeds.. 18 lbs of cracked corn and 18 lbs of rolled oats... This lasts me about 2 months depending on the number of babies I'm weaning at the time. Thats with some waste but not a whole lot.
-----
Lucien

1.1 Columbian Redtail Boa (BCI)(Sutekh and Isis)
2.1.1 Leopard geckos (2 Blizzards (Caine and Goliath), 1 Tangerine Albino (Tequila Sunrise ...Tiki for short) and 1 dbl. het blizzard x tang albino (Malice))
0.1 Savannah Monitor (Kiros)
13 rats
1 Gerbil
2 Dogs (Loki and Storm)
2 cats (Sahara and Hercules)

mariasman May 17, 2004 01:13 AM

n/p

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