Nutrition is essential in maintaining good health in pet rats. You want to choose a diet that contains the essential nutrients, vitamins and minerals, along with a variety of fruits, nuts, and vegetables that will help your rat fully thrive.

Rats are ominivorous meaning they eat and need both meats and plants in their diets just like you and me.

In the wild your rats eat fruits, nuts, seeds, grains, dead animals, fish, worms, and eggs... They are even partially predatory and will hunt down some foods (like other small animals such as lizards and birds and fish and insects and worms...) They eat whatever their body needs. As soon as we domesticated the rat, we started to control their environment- they can no longer eat what they need, they have to eat what we give them... With this controlled environment I think we as pet owners need to provide the most naturally & nutritionally complete diet that our rats can get from us...

A seedy diet for a rat is too fattening and can cause obesity and shortened life spans in your favorite little pets. The comercially packaged mixes found in pet shops contain high amounts of corn and seeds that will lead your rat to pick and choose only their favorite tasting bits. This can cause a rat to become under nourished because although the bits they are eating are tasty, they are not what they need the most. I personally feel that any store bought commercially made mix is bad for your rats. They don't even come close to the amount of nutrition a rat needs to fully thrive. Even the store bought mixes that contain added vitamins and minerals can be bad because they are so overly processed and packed with preservatives to give it a longer shelf life. If you still choose to stick with a store bought mix, the better choice would be Oxbow. This is a nutritionally balanced diet with most of the essentials, as long as you are still providing them with fresh fruits and veggies and I also recommend giving them cooked meats (beef, chicken, liver, oysters). I also recomend feeding lab blocks with this diet. Harlan Teklad is so far my number 1 choice. If this is the diet you choose, please keep the packaged foods as only 80% of their daily diet. The other 20% should be all fresh foods. I do not personally feed any type of store bought, pre packaged mix to my rats.

Remember to keep seeds like sunflower and nuts to a minimum in their diet, think of them as TREATS, not meals! If you are going to give sunflower seeds (They can be beneficial) try raw, unshelled, no salt added seeds.

Fresh fruits are a favorite with pet rats. Some very healthy ones to choose from include strawberries, banana's, cantelope, honeydew, & apples. Fruits do have a high water content as well as a lot of sugar. Fruits once or twice a week are favorable. Too much fruit can cause wet tail in rats. This is treatable with Dri-tail meds, but most importantly it is easy to prevent. Never feed your pet rat citrus fruits like oranges, clementines, & grapefruits because they can contain d-limonene

(see more information below)

Fresh veggies are essential in a fully nutritious rat diet. I have never had a rat turn down a certain veggie, they love them all, especially broccoli. Broccoli is very good for them, and some studies claim to show it can reduce the rate of tumors in rats.

WHAT NOT TO FEED YOUR RATS:

This mixture is the very mixture that we feed all of our rats. It was created by me from many great products sold in stores today. I created this mixture with the knowledge of what a rat needs in their diet to fully thrive while still maintaining a mostly organic diet. I recommend that all rat owners go organic! After switching to an organic diet you will notice that your rats will become more active than ever before, their coats will get shinier and healthier looking and they will get sick less often. Clinical studies in humans show the proof of what an organic diet can do for the body. With this mixture you will not be adding any harmful chemicals, growth hormones, or pesticides in to your rats system. This should not be the only food your rats get. When using this mix be sure it is only 80% of their diet. The other 20% should be fresh, organic foods (veggies, fruits, cooked meats and beans)

Below is a photo of each of the ingredients in our mix. We add one bag of each in a large bin. Don't be afraid to change it up! We often add different granola cereals, Kashi's flax cereal is a favorite with our rats. Add some shredded wheat, organic raisin bran... Go crazy and have fun with it! The same old boring mix everyday is well, BORING! It's okay to mix in different cereals.

This is our number one choice for the organic rice & wheat(Kamut)cereal.

It is 100% USDA certified organic and the rats just love it!

Mrs. Leeper's Rice Vegetable twists are a great addition to the mix. They are made with 100% USDA certified organic ingredients from real organic fresh veggies. We add one bag to a mix. The rats love them and it's adorable to hear them all chewing on uncooked pasta at once! It will also keep your ratties teeth filed down nicely. Keep in mind you do not need to use this particular brand, of even organic if you don't want to! Regular veggie spiral pasta can be found in almost any grocery store!

Bob's Red Mill Rolled Oats are also a great addition to our rat food mix. Oats are naturally sweet and the rats love that! Again they are 100% USDA certified organic and very healthy for your ratties. And again, you do not have to go organic. You can also use Quaker Oats brand (not instant, only old fashioned oats).

Arrowhead Mills Flax seeds provide a good source of fiber and protein for your rats. It is also a natural immune system booster! Again, this product is 100% USDA certified organic and the rats love it. We no longer directly add this to our mix because it does not "mix" but rather sinks to the bottom. So instead we found a Kashi brand cereal that contains flax seeds and this is much more fun. We also incorporate flax seeds in to our rats baby oatmeal mix at dinnertime!

The Goodlife Recipe. This is a wonderful dog food for your dogs and it turns out that it's great for your rats as well, this portion of the mix is not 100% organic but it does contain the necessary protein your rats need in a healthy and hearty form! It is also without added fillers, preservatives and growth hormones and is as natural as you can get with a great price you can afford. We add 2 cups per mixture of Goodlife Recipe. You can click on the photo above to visit their website.

Just peaches is also 100% USDA certified organic and the rats just love it. Sometimes we will switch to Just banana's or Just blueberries for a change but each time the rats have loved them all! Adding this to the mix of course does not replace the fresh organic fruits they get each day. When we have a hard time finding these for our mix we dehydrate and bake our own fruits for the mix! And if you don't want to go organic, you can find banana chips almost anywhere!

NOW, this is deffinately one of the MOST important things we have given our rats from day one! This is reverse osmosis filtered water. It contains no traces of chlorine or floride like you will find in normal bottled water and even in your tap water. Over time floride and chlorine causes cancer in people AND rats! It is deffinately a huge recommendation to switch your rats to this water. Culligan brand water is also reverse osmosis filtered.

Our rats LOVE baby food. This baby food is 100% USDA certified organic. We use baby food to administer yucky meds, or we mix it with baby oatmeal and flax seeds for a lovely warm treat!

We give our rats baby oatmeal every day. We mix it with baby food and flax seeds and warm it on the stove (microwaving removes all the nutrition!) The ratties love it and it is very nutricious!

Meats

cooked beef liver

cooked beef

cooked chicken

cooked oysters

Your rats DO need meats! They can not get the right kind of vitamins and minerals and protein from a dried mix, EVEN WITH DOG KIBBLE!

Organic is always best...

These are 2 of the different types of organic veggies that our rats get on a daily basis. We always change it daily (never the same veggies every single day) so that they don't get bored with their food :)

Also try bok choy, squash, kale, peas, cooked corn (not dried!) parsley, tomato, sprouts, collared greens...

We try to give them yummy organic fruits atleast once a week, usually about every 2 to 3 days. The banana's are their favorites but they also really love the apples and cantelope! You can give fruit daily but only in very small portions because of the high sugar content.

Also try apples, grapes (purple grapes have more cancer-prevention phytochemicals than green grapes), all types of berries, melon, prunes, and plums.