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Post by pentacle565 on Jun 27, 2008 21:39:38 GMT -5
So, when feeding the feeders, is there some food items that are best to provide for nutrional value? Right now I feed pet store seed mix, with oats and the occasional veggie. Should protine be included? how about stuff with omega-3?
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Post by josiesmom on Jun 28, 2008 8:45:57 GMT -5
Mice are omnivorous,
they'll eat anythng and everything, but of course they have their favorites. Like us they can easily get hooked on carbs and sweets. For the healthiest mice personally I'd stay completely away from ANY processed or pelletized foods. You can give them leftovers from your own meals ( as long as it isn't just pizza and ice cream).
Offer them a well rounded diet covering fruits, veggies, meats, bones, grasses, seeds and grains as well as things with fats and oils.
Stay away from corn as it can easily harbor a fungus that can kill your mice. IF you offer sunflower seeds, the mice will tend to scarf them up first. Don't give them any more sunflower seeds until the other seeds and food have been eaten. Otherwise you'll end up with very fat mice on a very one sided diet!
Give them a chicken bone to gnaw on. this will provide calcium, other minerals from the bone as well as nutritious marrow and necessary teeth conditioning.
If you don't spray pesticides and herbicides on your lawn, pick them some clover - both the leaves and flowers, rose buds with hips can offer them vitamin C naturally.
Crickets and superworms are mouse delicacies and high in bio available proteins and fats. Nightcrawlers are devoured readily too. Yes, offered live. Gives the mice some enrichment activities when catching their food.
Stay away from "man made" foods and offer a wide variety with fresh water and you'll have healthy mice!
Fresh water is paramount in any animal keeping, don't get roped into using LARGE water containers for convenience, the water will go stagnant and grow bacteria. Small water bottles that need refilling every second or third day work best.
I use filtered water for my mice (and ferrets) - same water I drink. So far so good.
Hope this helps! Cheers, Kim
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Post by pentacle565 on Jun 30, 2008 20:18:42 GMT -5
yes, thank you very much that helps a lot. I was feeding a petstore seed mix, with oats and the occasional other items. Now they get more variety. Btw, chicken bone raw or cooked?
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Post by josiesmom on Jun 30, 2008 23:04:57 GMT -5
actually both if you want. But I'll toss leftovers from the ferrets into the mouse bins. SO the bone started out as part of a raw morsel for the ferrets, but is by now a bit dried up for the mice.
Their teeth make short work of the dried bone.
Cheers, Kim
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Post by kilasxxrattery on Aug 13, 2008 17:27:30 GMT -5
You can purchase a nutritionally complete diet in the form of blocks from this website www.teklad.com You'll have to email them and ask for a quote on the size bag you want and shipping.
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Post by pear2apple on Aug 15, 2008 16:12:40 GMT -5
If I were breeding mice I'm not sure I could support a company that has a product specifically for LAB animals for testing. I don't support testing on animals, so I don't think I could go for that.
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Post by kilasxxrattery on Aug 15, 2008 18:34:13 GMT -5
There are other things that offer a completely nutritional diet for the rodents. Look up lab blocks or something. It is very hard to get a nutritionally complete diet for rodents. You could also go to www.mazuri.com/indexMazuri.aspThey have food especially meant for breeding animals. What I feed my rats (and I know mice are different than rats but they are somewhat similar in diet) is a low fat/protein senior dog food as their staple, but it has to be a good brand with meats and stuff as the first 3 or so ingredients and then put things like uncooked pasta, puffed rice cereal, total flakes, oats, flax seeds, very little sun flower seeds, grape nuts, and other things if I have it lying around the house.
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Post by whipple on Aug 15, 2008 19:06:57 GMT -5
I would feed my rats a mixed food I would make ahead of time as staple, then other things thrown in. The mix was cooked whole wheat pasta, with a variety of veggies tossed in. I would make a huge batch and freeze it, tossing it in the middle to make sure I could scoop it while still frozen. Then they would get a tiny bit of fruit for breakfast and something else as snacks. They loved their dog bones and rawhide. Sometimes sunflower seeds and cat food, ect. And of course meal worms, wax worms, ect once in a while. Live crickets have got to be a fun food too. This is what I plan on feeding the mice.
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Post by josiesmom on Aug 16, 2008 3:47:23 GMT -5
High carb diets for rodents do the same thing for them as they do in people and ferrets- feed TUMORS! You'll see more tumors in high carb diets so stay away from carbs. Also when you feed a high protein diet you'll get larger healthier litters and zero to no cannibalizing. Mice will quickly eat each other young or adults if their diet falls short on protein. For that reason I'd stay completely away from high carb diets and a low protein diet. Something to remember about lab diets is that the mice generally aren't expected to live very long. Labs want something easy and cheap to feed and uniform in consistency.
I'll stick with offering my mice natural foods and insects. I've had over 40 mice born in the last ten days and if Crystal hadn't gotten to three of my very pregnant Does I'd have had over 70 mice born!
My mice are very prolific on their natural diet and I am not having to spend money on yet another pet food made with mystery ingredients.
Cheers, Kim
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Post by pear2apple on Aug 17, 2008 13:27:22 GMT -5
Also when you feed a high protein diet you'll get larger healthier litters and zero to no cannibalizing. Mice will quickly eat each other young or adults if their diet falls short on protein. For that reason I'd stay completely away from high carb diets and a low protein diet. My boyfriend has his own wannabe mice colony. Wannabe only because he's had 2 litters, and both times the mothers ate almost all the babies! So needless to say, we fed those mice and are on totally new ones. We've changed the bedding, and giving them some toilet paper tubes to chew on. My boyfriend feeds a rodent seed mix and Marshall's ferret food because I had that, and then a generic dog food with like 18% protein. Is that enough? The chances of me convincing him to feed more naturally is pretty low, however I think its the diet that is causing the mothers to eat their litters, as well as a few other factors that are beyond our control right now. How much protein is ideal for a mouse? Daily these mice aren't eating the recommended serving size of a dog, so really they are getting much less than the 18% protein, correct? I've sent my boyfriend links to all your mice colony threads so hopefully he learns something! We both need these mice, my ferrets and his snakes. We can't really figure out why they aren't reproducing as they should. THanks for your help!
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Post by josiesmom on Aug 17, 2008 23:36:17 GMT -5
No, I don't think your BFs mice are getting enough protein. I too used up the rest of my ferret kibble by feeding it to the feeder mice. Then I got a bag of meow mix to add to their horse oats, sunflower seeds, alfalfa pellets and split peas. I mix one pound of split peas, 1 cup of alfalfa pellets, 2 cups of sunflower seeds, 2 cups of oats and 2 cups of cat food. then each bin gets a chicken bone of some sort to gnaw on. On sundays I add a new bone. Bones are very high in protein and great for the mice teeth. They'll also get a small chunk of carrot or apple during the week.
1 C. of sunflower seeds offer 74% fat, 12% Protein and 14% carbs as well as hulls to keep them busy. These are a good source of Thiamin, B6, MAgnesium, Phosphorous, Copper, Manganese, Selenium and is high in Vitamin E. ( another essential Vitamin for a healthy pregnancy)
1 C. of Split peas offer 3% fat, 25% protein and 72% carbs they are high in amino acids, thiamine, Folate( an essential nutrient for pregnancy), Phoshorous, Copper and manganese and a decent source of iron!
1 C. of oats offer 15% fat, 15% protein and 70% carbs again these are a good source of Thiamin, Magnesium,, Manganese, and Phosphorous and are high in iron.
1 C. of alfalfa pellets offers 1.2% fat, 15% protein carbs aren't listed, but fiber is and that is listed at 17% alfalfa is high in calcium While I don't feed alfalfa sprouts(but I might start) the nutrient info on them shows them to be 25% Fat, 42% protein and 33% carbs. Alfalfa is a good source of Protein, Vitamin A,Niacin, Calcium, Vit. C, Vit. K, THiamin, Riboflavin,Folate, Pantothenic Acid, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorous, Zinc, Copper and Manganese.
My litter counts have been pretty decent usually at least ten except for first time does, those have ranged from as few as three up to seven pups. My highest count was 17! But to make it easy on the doe I culled the males at 9 days.
Hope your BFcan review this and gets some ideas. I'm not saying my mouse diet is the best, but it seems to be working well for me!
Cheers, Kim
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Post by pear2apple on Aug 18, 2008 7:17:23 GMT -5
THanks Kim I am passing that information along!
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