# What do you feed your mice?



## DomLangowski

Please tell us what you feed your mice :roll:

Feel free to list ingredients if you mix your own


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## moonlight

I feed mine on shop bought mouse mix with wild bird seed


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## Sdaji

Commercially prepared rodent pellets. Sometimes they get rice, bread, vegetables, etc, but the pellets are the staple, making up around 80-90% of the diet. The foods sold in pet shops over here are absolute garbage and make your rodents unhealthy. Most of the lab style pellets are good.

The rats don't get rice, but sometimes they get vegetables and bread, and if they're lucky they get insects (which I breed primarily for my lizards and to sell to bird, lizard and amphibian keepers).


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## Mark

[email protected] Rat muslie and wild bird seed plus fruit n veg


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## Ruthy

Reggie rat mixed with puppy kibble, cereals and rabbit mix.
They get millet sprays and fresh veg too.


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## Angelmouse

Mine tend to get what I can get at the time but mainly Rabbit mix with Rat and mouse food with some dog mixer biscuits and some sprigs of millet. They also get dog biscuits too help file their teeth down, they get scrambled egg rarely but when they have it they love it.


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## demon_x_slash

Big mix, in descending order of volume:

[email protected] gerbil and mouse 'muesli' 
Rolled oats 
Wild bird seed
Flaked barley 
Kitten kibble 
Linseed 
Sunflower seeds

...mixed with powdered lactol. Then salad, baby corn, millet, random seed bunches from the 'Naturals' range...OH says they get better food than he does...


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## fenwoman

a bit of everything. I keep lots of animals so they get parrot seedmix, bonios, cat biscuits occasionally. Last night they had a bit of my home made pumpkin muffins, a piece of butternut squash and a brazil nut.


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## Sdaji

The price of feed is going up dramatically here. It has about doubled over the last couple of years and over the last few months has increased by a further 50% or so. It's now well over $1/kg (which adds up when you're buying 100kg at a time), so we're looking for alternatives such as chicken or dog feed pellets. These are of the same quality and similar nutritional value, but are produced in larger quantities due to the demand, making them cheaper.

We still use rice, a range of vegetables, milk thistles, bread and other feed to supplement the staple diet.


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## Peteyandthegang

We vary our foods. The only things we always include are a rat mix, bird seed and oats as a base

We also use
Millet
Rice
Bran flakes
Shelled hemp
100 percent wheat or corn cereals
Porridge made with rice milk
Pasta
Veggies-Peas, sweetcorn, pepper, carrots, broccoli, lettuce etc
Fruits-small bits of apple once a week
Seeds including pumpkin, linseed and sunflower
Naturals foods like their herbal stuff
Mealworms (very occasionally and for our nursing doe)
Little bits of toast (rare treat)
Peanuts

And whatever other mouse friendly stuff we happen to have


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## Kage Davies

Their main mix is;

1kg [email protected] rat mix
1kg Petshop Hamster mix
A bag of naturals treats of some kind
Two or Three good handfuls of Mealie Worms
250g Honey Dipped Banana Chips

And then I add to that whatever of the following I have hanging about the kitchen;
Raisins
Cranberries (dried)
Raw Cashew Kernels

Along with that they often get fresh veg, and sometimes something really naughty like porridge oats or dog biscuits. But I think its probably unbalanced on the protein side of things, so I'm re thinking at the moment. Oh, and all hamster mixes I use have all of the peanuts and sunflower seeds taken out (painstakingly) by hand. There are enough sunflower seeds in the rat mix.


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## ian

I used to feed a food with commercial rat food as a base, but it became too expensive so I have reduced down to a more cost effective home mix and I havent noticed any difference in the mices condition. Now the base is oats and wild bird seed and for protein they have kibble, mostly specific kitten or puppy ones as it suggests it has extra vitamins etc for growth. They may also have bonio biscuits and recently I have found bonio 'milk' biscuits for puppies and they love them.

Nursing does and babies get huge amounts of lactol to try to give them the best start but I think the effects are seriously limited by genetics although sometimes some great mice have developed form nothing and I have put that down to lactol.


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## Paul

Ian - Do you make up the lactol into liquid or put it dry into the food mix?


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## ian

At the moment I have (what feels like) hundreds of babies so I am being a bit lazy and mixing it in dry with their food mix. Although when I have more time I will make it up into a liquid and leave some bread or oats to soak it up, or even some dog biscuits. Some groups of does love it and will eat it all as soon as its put in but others leave bits so its important to clear it away the next morning.


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## Kage Davies

do you just sprinkle it over their food? I bought some lactol today :3. Mine are fussy when it comes to squishy food though.


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## Angelmouse

Just spinkle it on.... I mix it in to mine as I have a large dustbin with their feed in.


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## ian

Yeah I just sprinkle it on the food or mix it in with the mix if I've got loads of litters. They definately eat it, the babies are generally covered in white powder and I always have to double check its nothing to do with mites!


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## daisy

i have been experimenting quite a bit with my mix at the moment as im fed up with waste...

i generally have on the go:

in order of quantity most to less

oats
allen and page rabbit mix
wild bird seed
protein - in the form of kitten kibbles usually

have been trying out layers pellets recently but they dont seem to like them at all, i'm also on the hunt for something cheaper than kitten kibbles but good enough quality....

have tried pregnant and nursing does on this mix i found in the supermarket mad by bill oddie i think for birds, a peanut and meal worm crumble, sounded pretty tasty for them

have tubs of sunflower seeds and linseeds for an extra boost every now and again, also feed lactol to mummas,

want to faze out the rabbit mix as most of it gets left, they seem to like the big orange carroty bits the most.. no where near here seems to sell ingrediants seperatley


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## Cait

If you have a horse supply shop you should be able to buy barley and/or mixed flake in big sacks. I swapped these for the rabbit food and it seems to be just as good. If I wasn't allergic I'd give them hay too :lol:


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## daisy

what brand do you use cait? i used to feed my horses barley in a mash form that had to be soaked... oats and barley arent things i feed my horses these days so im not that up to speed on a decent brand


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## Paul

Mixed flakes/Barley in place of both the rabbit mix and the oats, or the flakes plus the oats? I breed cats so always have kitten kibble around, but thought it was too high in protein????

Just tried my lot on freshly popped corn, seems to have gone down very well!


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## Cait

Daisy: I'll be honest I have no idea. They don't require any soaking for mice though, just mixed in with the other dry stuff. I'm sure any good quality barley would be fine, mine is rolled and micronized I believe :roll:

Paul: Oats AND barley AND mixed flake in my case, along with bird seed and 2 types of dog food. I don't use kitten stuff because as you say it's very high in protein.


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## dangermouse

can they then eat pearl barley as in the sort you get from supermarkets.... if so will that need soaking as it is not rolled etc? sorry for the dumb question in advance........... :?


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## Cait

I looked on the bag for the brand of barley I have and it is called Heygates, apparently the barley is steam cooked


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## demon_x_slash

I've found the easiest barley to use is flaked barley - you can get it from Holland and Barretts or any other health food shop and doesn't need anything doing to it. H&B also do fresh hemp, which my mice love in small quantities...


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## NaomiR

[email protected] Gerbil/Mouse Muslei
Harry Hamster Muslei
Reggie Rat
[email protected] Robin Blend
Dried Mealworms
Dried Dandilions
ReadiGrass
Puppy / Kitten Kibble

Extras include the Milk Bonios, sunflower seeds and hearts, egg biscuits (for birds) and millet and (like most people on here) as I have loads of animals they get almost anything else lying around, within reason 

The only thing I've found they avoid are shop bought "hamster" treat sticks, none of mine will even go near them!!


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## NaomiR

I have since cut out the hamster and gerbil/mouse as they were ignoring it


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## Jammy

Is there not a comercial mix that can be bought ready prepared that is high enough quality ?
Or im thinking of weaning them onto my rats mix it contains

Un-molassed pasture mix (horse mix)
Bite size shredded wheats
low sugar cornflakes 
Sometime's tiny (dried) pasta shells

Does this look suitable at all ?


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## Halcyon

Mine have oats, sunflower hearts and linseed, or sometimes I buy "omega mix" seeds to mix. I buy all this from Julian Graves or Holland and Barrett. I sometimes mix in Wild Bird Seed or some PAH mouse & gerbil mix, but mainly they have just the oats and seeds. On top of this they have bread, I feed my bread dry.

I suppose when I have enough mice I will buy my oats in a sack, I just don't have enough to warrant it at the moment. My shed attracts enough wild mice as it is :roll:


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## Cait

Don't you give any animal protein like dog food? Mice are omnivores too...


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## Halcyon

oh yes sorry I forgot to add they get the same table scraps as the rats and get chicken bones and fruit and veg scraps and stuff, but that is not their staple diet. I tend to only add dog kibble to the mix on mums and babies on a daily basis, but I guess that is because that is how I feed the rats. It is not good to feed adult rats protein in this way, it leads to kidney disease


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## Ariake

I've always made up my own mixes to go along with the lab pellets, because commercial ones just don't suit my needs. My mice also get good quality timothy or oat hay, for bedding and chewing fun.

Basic Mix:
Rolled oats
Mutigrain flakes cereal (vitamin fortified)
Puffed brown rice
Flaked barley
Puffed quinoa
Birdseed mix (without sunflower seeds)
Flaxseed
High quality low protein dog kibble (I use a rice/chicken weight management formula, for preg/nursing does)

For treats, I give my mice chicken bones, homemade bread, in shell nuts, dog biscuits, fruits and veggies, dog bones, millet sprays, cooked/raw pasta, dried fruit, and tasty herbs from my window boxes. I also give bread soaked in chicken broth and warm baby oatmeal cereal.


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## Jammy

Mine are eating my rat mix and seem to be thriving but i spose only time will tell !!!


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## Toast

I feed mine Fiesta Max Mouse and Rat food, though I have been looking for some different stuff lately.


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## moustress

No corn for my mousies; not even byproducts of corn.


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