# Mice Food



## SoontobeGrandpa

i bought mice food from a store where i bought the mices. It has peanuts with it's shell intact, red peppers, alot of colorful different shape nuts/food, alot of white small nuts, sunflower? seed and thats about it. Is this right for mice? ..............also what treats out there can i give them? I fed them cheese and apples...


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## SoontobeGrandpa

it got corns too


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## windyhill

I make my own food. Corn is iffy some breeders feed ot with no problems and others say it causes tumors, etc in their mice.

I feed:
* Wild bird seed/cockatiel seed 
*High Quality dog food 
*Ramen noodles (uncooked)
*Pumpkin seeds 
*Whole grain cereal(cheerios/corn flakes)
*Sunflower seeds
*Split peas (uncooked)
*Rice


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## SoontobeGrandpa

really corns = tumors? i might take that out then..windyhill, do you have a picture of that food?


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## WillowDragon

I wouldn't feed cheese if I were you... it can have bad affects on mousey tummies, plus all that fat is really not good. Most dairy products can be iffy.

Also, for apples and other greens, don't feed too much or too often or it can lead to diahorrea which is lethal if unnoticed and untreated.

W xx


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## Cait

It sounds like you need to get some grains like oats and barley, plus some lower protein dog food to add in to what you have.


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## Jemma

SoontobeGrandpa said:


> really corns = tumors? i might take that out then..windyhill, do you have a picture of that food?


Corn doesn't cause tumours. If it's stored badly, it can grow fungi which produce toxins that can cause cancer and have other harmful effects. There are strict rules here so that corn deemed fit for human consumption isn't (much) contaminated but the rules for pet food and livestock feed allow for much higher levels of contamination. Unfortunately, I don't know what the laws are like in Guam. The same fungi can affect many different grains but corn and peanuts are the most commonly affected.

Everyone's given you good advice though - I don't think I have much to add!


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## SoontobeGrandpa

aw why cheese? my 2 mices love eating cheese especially the hard ones and wow i didn't know about that about apples. the last time i fed them apples was days ago..thank god!


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## Cait

Most animals are fairly lactose intolerant (this is why many human babies can't have cow's milk) so it is difficult to digest for them. It is also very fatty as someone has already mentioned.


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## SoontobeGrandpa

ok then i will fix them everything including the corns and peanuts


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## windyhill

Theres alot of breeder on here who say corn causes cancer and tumors.
I think of one even said after they cut out corn they had less tumors show up.


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## mike k

Don't know if its true but been told not to feed rice to mice or rats unless its been soaked for quite awhile for the sake of the rice swelling in the rodent

But I may be wrong

Mike


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## Cait

No it isn't, cheese is NOT a food you should give mice. Peanut butter is debatable, some will give it and some say you never should feed it.


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## moustress

For meeces without a long history of tumor free generations, corn can cause cancer. I have heard it said from more than one source that purebred English show meeces rarely, if ever, get tumors. Females are the most susceptible because of the rapid cycling of hormones along with the 3-6 day estrus cycle.


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## CatWoman

mike k said:


> Don't know if its true but been told not to feed rice to mice or rats unless its been soaked for quite awhile for the sake of the rice swelling in the rodent
> 
> But I may be wrong
> 
> Mike


When I was a kid, I ate almost a whole box of uncooked macaroni, from the Kraft Macaroni & Cheese mix. I can assure you, based on experience, that if you intend to feed rice or pasta in a significant volume, the rodents will fully appreciate you taking the time to hydrate it first.


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## Loganberry

moustress said:


> For meeces without a long history of tumor free generations, corn can cause cancer. I have heard it said from more than one source that purebred English show meeces rarely, if ever, get tumors. Females are the most susceptible because of the rapid cycling of hormones along with the 3-6 day estrus cycle.


My mice have a lot of mixed corn in their diets. Corn does not cause cancer. That is such a random thing to say.....


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## SarahY

Recently I've actually added maize to my mouse diet. I have found out that not only is it a source of vitamin B1, vitamin B5, dietary fibre (the hind gut type that very useful for rodents), vitamin C, phosphorus and manganese but (most importantly for us breeders) it contains folate, which is important in preventing birth defects.

Sarah xxx


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## Jack Garcia

I also feed corn (maize) to my mice with no problem. It's not a major (or even a daily) part of their diet, but especially in the summer I will cut up a fresh ear from the fields and let them munch on it. I very rarely have tumors of any type.

I wonder if the issues some people have had with corn is not actually the quality of food they were feeding and not the corn in and of itself. Of course if you fed your mice ONLY corn, there could be problems, but nobody is advocating that.


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## SarahY

> I wonder if the issues some people have had with corn is not actually the quality of food they were feeding and not the corn in and of itself.


I wonder that myself.

Sarah xxx


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## The Boggit keeper

SarahY said:


> Recently I've actually added maize to my mouse diet. I have found out that not only is it a source of vitamin B1, vitamin B5, dietary fibre (the hind gut type that very useful for rodents), vitamin C, phosphorus and manganese but (most importantly for us breeders) it contains folate, which is important in preventing birth defects.
> 
> Sarah xxx


This is really interesting- I have been mixing my own feed for my mice as it was the only way I could provide them with a corn/maize free diet, having noted the concerns raised about corn maybe contributing to Tumours in mice. However, I had recently posted my concerns about whether I was feeding my mice correctly as they were a little slimmer than I would like to see them.One thing that I hadn't mentioned was that my mice seem to have Quite soft,smelly droppings and I have noticed that more than once one of them in the cage has had diarrhoea. It seems to me that maybe something in their diet isn't right and having just read Sarah's post maybe it is actually the lack of corn/maize that is the problem particularily if it is a good source of dietary fibre for hind-gut health?
I would have thought that if their hind-gut wasn't working well could it effect absorption of nutrients and maybe effect their appetites- hence my thin mice? Or have I got it the wrong way round, has nutritional value been absorbed before it gets to the hind-gut?(my biolgy was never very good  )
Anybody any ideas?


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## moustress

I do believe strongly in keeping yellow field corn out of my meeces diet; it's not a 'random' thing at all. I am tempted to find out if it's just the gigantic kernels of yellow field corn that cause the cancer, in which case it could be due to the strain of corn, residues of pesticide and herbicides, or maybe only due to it being raw but dried. I have thought of trying organically grown corn, or different colors of corn. Now I'm stoked to do research on the nutritive value of different colors and kinds of corn, cooked or just dried.


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## SarahY

To the best of my limited understanding, mice digest things all the way down and the type of dietary fibre found in maize helps the process by keeping the skin inside the intestines clean - the rough fibre 'scrubs' the inside like a pumice stone, removing dead skin cells and nasty food build-up - which means that more nutrition is absorbed through the intestinal skin. This process and the bulk natural to fibre results in a stiffer, healthier and cleaner smelling poo and a healthier mouse. That's how I understand it anyway 

For people worried about the risk of tumours there are alternatives, although I can't think of them right now.

I feel that the risk is very minimal. I do wonder how much of the tumour thing is down to poor storage, not the maize itself. I don't deny that certain strains of mice may be more sensitive to certain foods but I've fed my mice and previously my rats both maize-inclusive and maize-free diets and have never noticed a difference in my rodents - either way rats and mice from badly-bred pet shop backgrounds have had high incidents of tumours and my breeder rats and mice haven't.

Sarah xxx


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## The Boggit keeper

Thankyou both.  
My way of thinking at the moment is to gradually re-introduce corn/maize to my mousies diet. I am not confident that what i am feeding is suiting them so I will go back to a comercial mix. I must admit all of my previous mice(pet shop purchases) have been fed a mixed diet with corn/maize and I have never had any tummy upsets in my mousies until now, so it may well be that I just haven't got the balance right and haven't managed to replace the corn/maize nutritionally. I would rather my meeces were healthy now so i'm going to give the corn/maize a go & see if their guts settle down.  Having said that i have also had mousies with tumours and there lies the question-was it corn or genetics?


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## moustress

Oats and wheat as the bulk of my meeces diet also produces very dry poop.


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## The secret garden

lol dry poop


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## Autumn2005

I just switched over to mixing my own food, and I feed:
rolled barley
oat groats
wheat
wild birdseed (which does contain some corn, but not as much as the commercial mousefood I used to buy)
rabbit pellets
high quality dog food

So far my mice love it! I'm keeping a close eye on them, as they've only been in the diet a few days...


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## racingmouse

I pick all corn/maize out of my mix aswell mainly because corn is mainly a `filler` and you will find that if you google many of the grains and seeds that we feed to our mice, many already contain the same nutrients/vitamins/minerals that corn does anyway, so I would rather have an alternative within my mix than risk feeding corn that may or may not be detrimental to their health. Whether is`t cancer causing or carrying a fungus.

I don`t feed raw rice either. I debated this on and off on other forums and still hav`nt had a clear and precise answer to whether is swells in the tummy, even once the mice have nibbled it down. Alternatively, I but Kallo organic wholegrain PUFFED rice! Available from Holland & Barratt and some Tesco stores. I can eat it too so it`s worth it!!! :lol:

To the original poster, the food you are feeding sounds very wrong. The actual mix has too many peanuts and not enough grains. I also echo what Cait said regarding dairy/cheese. Cartoon mice eat cheese but not real ones!

Have a look through the feeding section on here and write down some of the things on there and look for them locally where you are. Some commercially prepared mixes are sold for mice, but they are not ideal, or have ingredients that have too many fillers in them and high fat/protein.


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