# Producers Pride All Grain food



## Awaiting_Abyss (Nov 19, 2012)

Has anyone here ever used Producers Pride All Grain food? Its a 50 pound bag that is normally used for horses. I can't recall all of its ingredients, but it has rolled oats, corn and barley in it.

I'd like to know if its worth getting. I do not feed my mice any corn, so I would have to pick all the corn out. I already buy a bag of just rolled oats, so I would only be getting it for the barley really. If its a lot of corn then it definitely wouldn't be worth it, but I wonder if I'd still be better off just getting barley from elsewhere.


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## Demonic Hope (Jul 1, 2013)

Its got molasses in it so I'm not sure if mice would even touch it. Mine hate sweet things.

http://www.tractorsupply.com/en/store/p ... feed-50-lb


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## Laigaie (Mar 7, 2011)

Mice LOVE molasses, and it is an excellent source of vitamins and minerals. However, this food has a protein content of 10%. That's not nearly enough for a breeding mouse. Personally, I wouldn't call it enough for a pet mouse in good health, much less breeding/lactating/growing/aged mice. You would need to add a LOT of protein to this, especially if you're taking out all the corn.


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## Awaiting_Abyss (Nov 19, 2012)

I'm just asking if it would be suitable to add to my already existing mix. This would not be their only food source.


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## Laigaie (Mar 7, 2011)

It would depend on what else is in your mix, and at what percentages. The rest of it would have to be fairly protein-rich.


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## Demonic Hope (Jul 1, 2013)

Laigaie said:


> Mice LOVE molasses, and it is an excellent source of vitamins and minerals. However, this food has a protein content of 10%. That's not nearly enough for a breeding mouse. Personally, I wouldn't call it enough for a pet mouse in good health, much less breeding/lactating/growing/aged mice. You would need to add a LOT of protein to this, especially if you're taking out all the corn.


Seriously? I've got 15 mice and I tried to feed them some cookies I made them which had molasses and they took one nibble and refused to touch them afterwards. I also tried adding Horseman's Edge 14% Sweet feed which has molasses in it and they refused to touch the oats from the Edge but they ate the plain oats in the mix.


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## Awaiting_Abyss (Nov 19, 2012)

I'll have to figure up what the protein and etc is or my mix with and without this grain food.

How does one figure how much protein one or two pieces of dog food is?


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## Laigaie (Mar 7, 2011)

Sadly, algebra. You'd have to weigh them, and weigh the rest of your mix. You're probably totally aware of this formula, but I figured I'd post it here in case anyone needs it later. Oh, and I wouldn't recommend your protein source being greater than 25% of your mix (or really even that high!) because that can add a lot of fat to the diet, which tends to give rough coats. They need some fat, but not oodles.

If you know that you have, say, 25% by weight dog chow and 75% the rest of your mix, then if the dog chow is 30% protein (pretty average) and the rest of the mix is 15% protein, the total mix has [[ (.25 x .3) + (.75 x .15) = (.075) + (.1125) = (.1875) ]] 19%.

To get a 10% protein mix up to 20% protein, you'd need to add a kibble that had, say, 50% (like evo weight management, or if you used mealworms), and it would still need to be 25% of your mix. [[ (.75 x .1) + (.25 x .5) = .2]] That's a lot of mealworms!! Your mouse mix would have to be really cheap to make up for the 25% of the mix that's an expensive protein source.

If you had that 15% protein mix and 50% protein kibble, though, you can drop the percentage of your kibble to 15% instead of 25%. [[ (.15 x .85) + (.5 x .15) = (.1275) + (.075) = .2025 or 20%. That's why using the higher-protein-percentage kibble can actually save you money, if you don't have access to higher-protein mouse blocks, or if your mouse mix is cheap but low-protein. You're spending less on each gram of protein in the bag, even though you're spending more per pound.

Basically, multiply the protein content in decimal format of this ingredient by the amount of this ingredient in the mix in decimal format (where 10% means .1). Find that number for each ingredient, then add them all up. That gets you the total protein content of your mix.  Anything between 18 and 24 percent protein is within totally reasonable limits for breeding mice, growing pups, or aged mice. Anything up to 16-18 percent protein is reasonable for healthy adult non-breeding mice, like pets or retired does that are still in their prime. The basic formula works no matter how many ingredients your mouse mix has, and even if you're using straight grains or packaged pasta.


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## Awaiting_Abyss (Nov 19, 2012)

Thank you for that.

The kind of dog food I use is this:
http://www.tractorsupply.com/en/store/4 ... -35-lb-bag

I usually give about one piece per mouse every other day. Unless the mouse is nursing/pregnant/very young/very old... in which case I give a piece every day.
I wouldn't really care if I have to add more dog food to the mix. I buy the 35 pound bag for $35. Its cheaper than buying the smaller bags and my chihuahua eats so little that the food would go stale before I fed it all to him.

I'm not sure how to calculate the protein for my bird seed that I use... Its Walmart's economy mix. Usually it just has wheat, millet, milo and sunflower seeds in it, but this new bag that I got has peanuts and corn in it... Yet peanuts and corn is not listed on the ingredients. I've been picking the corn out of it though and feeding it to my other rodents since it isn't much corn.

The rest of my mix is straight rolled oats.


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## Laigaie (Mar 7, 2011)

Hm. Food produced for humans or livestock or pets are always labeled with protein and other nutrient info. It didn't occur to me that this wouldn't be required for wild bird mixes, but it does make sense. That would make it more difficult, as you'd have to break it down to the ingredient level, and look up nutrient info on each of those.


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## Awaiting_Abyss (Nov 19, 2012)

I purchased a bag to try it out, and it turns out that the site says the protein is 10% but the bag says it is 8%... So I'm thinking its not worth it.


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## Demonic Hope (Jul 1, 2013)

Awaiting_Abyss said:


> I purchased a bag to try it out, and it turns out that the site says the protein is 10% but the bag says it is 8%... So I'm thinking its not worth it.


Most horse feeds have open formulas. Basically they change the ingredients and the amounts of the ingredients per batch and all it has to be is "close" to the percentage on the bag and it will have the true amount on the label. Some batches will have oats for the main ingredient, the next might have corn as the main ingredients. Pretty much whatever grain is cheapest at the time the ingredients are purchased for that batch will have the highest amounts. I think they only need to have the ingredients withing 3% of the label for it to be okay.

I buy Horseman's Edge Textured Feed to give my senior horse as a treat. I buy the bag that says 10% Protein on it. But reading the label I've seen it as low as 7% and as high as 12%. So that shows you how much it can vary. A


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## Awaiting_Abyss (Nov 19, 2012)

Demonic Hope said:


> Awaiting_Abyss said:
> 
> 
> > I purchased a bag to try it out, and it turns out that the site says the protein is 10% but the bag says it is 8%... So I'm thinking its not worth it.
> ...


Interesting. I didn't know that.


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