Rats will literally eat anything. It’s a big part of why they survive so well in the wild amongst other factors. This doesn’t mean they should though. Creating your own rat mix has many benefits both to you and your rats. It ensures you give them a varied diet of different ingredients they can thrive on, keeps the weights of our rats easier to manage, improves longevity of life and overall quality of rat as well as many more health benefits. It also is much cheaper than buying the high quality of best rat mixes out there.
Here we take a look at the full process of making your own rat food mix. This will give you a great idea of what you’ll need step by step in creating your very own creation mix for your rats. There is a basic structure to doing this and you can customise it to add the things you can source yourself. You can go from a small basic mix to start off with right up to big and varied multiple ingredient blends.
This homemade rat mix is based off the Shunamite Diet via The Scuttling Gormet Website.
Step 1 – The 6 Parts
In this mix there are 6 different categories of food types that make it up. Each type can have a minimum of 1 suggested ingredient in it for a very basic mix but it’s recommended to start with at least 2. The more you add to it the more varied you will make your mix which will have extra benefits as well as minimizing the chances of your rats getting bored with their food too quickly.
The 6 parts are as follows:
* Base Mix – This will form the bulk of your mix. Most base mixes can be found at places like equestrian shops or farm stores and can be bought in large amounts.
* Processed Grains – made up mostly of human breakfast cereals and pasta. Can be easily picked up during your weekly shop for very cheap.
* Herbs and Veg – these can be bought from certain places like pet shops and whole food stores but buying a dehydrator and doing it yourself works out much cheaper in the long run
* Protein – things like high quality dog kibble and more natural sources like dried insects can be picked up from pet shops. Other bits like lentils can be picked up during your weekly shop.
* Seeds – should be a nice mix of different seeds. Can be made yourself or bought ready mixed from stores or pet shops.
* Supplements – shop bought mixes tend to have vitamins sprayed on them. If you make your own mix you will need to supplements separately.
Step 2 – Ingredients
The below are the more common examples of what most rat keepers use to make a good complete mix. This is just a basic suggestion for the more commonly used ingredients. Start out by picking one or two of each then as you get more confident with making up a mix you can look at adding lots more into each of the sections. For a much bigger and complete list check out the DIY Rat Mix – Ultimate Ingredient List now.
Base mix
This will make up the bulk of your mix so it’s good to buy it in large amounts as you soon go through it. Base mixes make up 50% of your total mix so mixing more than one together also gives a much better range of ingredients and variety for your mix too. You can get a large number of different base mixes from ones aimed at rabbits, Pygmy goats and even horses as examples. Picking 2 different mixes aimed for different categories of animals is better. E.g a rabbit base mix and a horse base mix brings much better variety than it would merging 2 rabbit base mixes together. I’ll provide a recommended Base Mix graphic below for some good examples of what to use.
Base mixes can be bought cheapest from equine supply shops and country stores. Some pet shops will be able to order in certain base mixes. Especially ones aimed for rabbits. Other than that you can get most off Amazon but they are often more expensive and delivery costs push that up too. I did a price comparison on Allen and Page Pygmy goat mix. In my local country store it was £16.45 for a large sack of this. On Amazon it was £24.45 delivered so well worth shopping around.
Processed Grains
This is one of my favourite sections of the mix. Partly because it can be done so cheaply but also because there is so much range and variety of products you can put into them and nearly everything in this section can be bought at your local shop or supermarket. Pastas, cereals, noodles, crackers etc can all be own brand and at places like Lidl and Aldi these are very cheap. Get a couple of examples of each item for variety. So for pasta you can add in a bit of penne, fusilli and macaroni for example. All do the same job but it just keeps things interesting for them having different things in there. Make sure with your cereals you check that there is less than 5g of sugar per 100g in there. When you’re out there looking you’ll quickly find this can be a hard task but it is achievable I promise. I’ve found own brand versions of popular big brand cereals is the best way to go for this. Barley rings can be picked up from country stores or equine supply shops in larger sacks and last for quite a while so buying in bulk works out cheaper in the long run.
* Low Sugar Breakfast Cereals (look for less than 5g of fat per 100g) Try get 2-3 different varieties. Best examples include own brand versions of Shreddies, Cornflakes, Puffed Wheat etc
* Pasta – get a couple different shapes and sizes for Variety
* Wholegrain Rice
* Rice Crackers (Unflavoured)
* Rice Noodles/Egg Noodles
* Pearl Barley/Barley Rings
* Pop Corn (Unflavoured)
* Plain Oats
Herbs and Veg
This is a section that you can go as mad as you want in really. If you just wanted a few different types of dried fruit/veg in there that’s fine but you can really add as many different types as possible if you wish to get as much variety as you can. Obviously the higher calorie stuff should be limited as much as possible so I do recommend having a look through the Isamu Rats guide on Fruit & Vegetables and picking the ones on their with no warnings on them for being fatty or having other risks.
The cheapest way of filling up a mix with items from this section is to buy a dehydrator and do it yourself. Dehydrating veg can be a little more time consuming with prep time and having to wait for it to dehydrate but with the amount of things you can do all at once you soon build big batches up. Dehydrators can be picked up for reasonable prices and soon pay for themselves as fruit, veg and herbs can be picked up extremely cheap. Advantages of dehydrating is you can put in whatever you want and also use leftovers from your own food that would usually go to waste. If this is something you’re interested in have a look at The Rat Wiki Guide on Dehydrating Fruit/Veg For Your Rat Mix
If you want to buy ready dehydrated veg then places like Mischief Made and RatRations sell ready made bags of it. At Mischief Made you can use their “Munch Mixer” tool where you can select the total weight of stuff you want and pick your own ingredients and they will make a custom batch for you from what you enter. You can also find dried items at whole food stores and health food shops but they are likely to be a lot more expensive.
You can dehydrate your own herbs too however picking up rabbit herb mixes from pet shops can also work out quite cheap. More specialist herbs like echinacea and other similar beneficial ones can be found in health food shops as well but as always these might be pricier than where you can get them at animal supply stores.
* Dried Herbs – Dandelion, flower mixes, Echinacea, Basil, Parsley, Dill, Thyme
* Dried Fruit – Apple, Apricot, banana, coconut, papaya
* Dried Veg – Carrot, Leek, Pepper, Parsnip, Beetroot, Broccoli
* Rabbit Herb Mixes
* Bunny Bistro Vitality Salad
Protein
The main ingredient in this section is dog kibble. Buying a higher quality kibble is more expensive but unlike other ingredients in this mix it’s well worth splashing out a little more for better quality ingredients. Your best option is an insect or fish based kibble from a high quality brand. Pet shops are your best option for this. Especially those ones who stock a large amount of high quality dog food. You’ll likely find a decent enough brand on the supermarket shelves but if you have a good pet shop near you then that will likely have better kibble in to try.
Other items like your dried insects and shrimp will also be found at pet shops too. Your basic Doc/Cat/Rabbit pet shops might not stock items like this but ones who supply for more exotic animals like reptiles/birds etc will be a better option to try. The legumes, soya, lentils and peas can all be picked up easily and cheaply from supermarkets. Large bags of soya flakes can be picked up from equine supply shops or country stores too and are much cheaper when buying in bulk.
* High Quality Dog Kibble – Try going Fish or insect based as they are kinder on the kidneys. The higher the quality the better although this can come at expense but worth paying more for.
* Dried Insects/Shrimp/fish
* Egg Biscuits
* Pulses – lentils, peas, roasted soya beans, soya protein
Seeds
Seeds make up the smallest part of your mix but this doesn’t mean they aren’t important. They are packed full of very healthy things for your rats you just need to feed in moderation as they can be quite fatty in larger amounts. Making a basic seed mix is very simple to do and quite cheap if found in the right places. You can make your own basic seed mix by mixing simple, readily available seeds together such as Hempseed, Linseed, Sunflower seed and Pumpkin seeds for example. These can usually be found in separate bags in supermarkets and health food shops and you can just simply mix them all together and add to your mix. Seed mixes can also be bought for quite cheap too. Just check the ingredients first as a lot of seed mixes aimed for birds have different ingredients added that aren’t really needed. A really good bulk buy most rat owners recommend is Bucktons Pigeon conditioner. This is a really good mix full of ingredients your rats will like and it’s pretty cost effective too especially if you have a lot of mouths to feed. They can be picked up easily off amazon. Your local pet shop may be able to order this in too it’s worth checking as it will likely be slightly cheaper and you will save on delivery costs too.
* Pumpkin Seeds
* Linseed
* Hempseed
* Sunflower Seeds
* Sesame Seeds
* Peanuts (Smaller amounts)
* Parrot Seed Mixes from Pet Shops
* Organic Omega Seed Blend by Buy Whole Foods Online
Supplements
Even with a fully balanced complete rat mix it’s hard to find ingredients that cover certain things needed by rats. Calcium, Copper and Vitamin D being some of those vital nutrients needed for good health. So to get around that we can use supplements to either add to their water or to their fresh food to make sure they get everything they need in their diet.
* Dr Squiggles Daily Essentials
* Rat Rations CaCuD3
* Calcivet
Step 3 – Ratios
Getting the right balance is very important in a mix. Foods high in fat like the seeds and high in protein like the kibble need only a small amount adding whereas the base mix is much lower in fat food value but still important for a balanced diet so you can add more. The best way to measure if to find yourself a “scoop” to use. This can be an actual feeding scoop or anything else like a cup or a glass. Whatever you use just make sure you use the same thing for the whole mix so it’s accurate measuring. 1 cup will make up 5% of our total batch. Mix each batch up thoroughly so all the ingredients spread together evenly.
Base Mix – 50% -10 scoops
Grains – 25% – 5 Scoops
Protein – 10% – 2 Scoops
Herbs and Veg – 10% – 2 Scoops
Seeds – 5% – 1 scoop
Not only will making your own mix work out much cheaper in the long run but you can modify it at anytime. A lot of breeders will adjust their mixes often depending on the general ages of their rats or even at certain times of year. You can also change the ingredients every now and again to keep your rats interested and prevent food boredom. Remember that scatter feeding will also keep them stimulated so make sure you spread the food out far and wide in the cage for them to search for.
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