I'm thinking about switching to a home made diet. Hear me out!

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I bought one yesterday. I'm now doing the sweet potatoes. How long does that usually take? In my booklet it says between 4 to 16 hours. lol Not very precise.
I've got loads of fresh strawberries, I'm doing those next.
Oh I just noticed we totally highjacked the threat. Sorry!!!! But it's definitely the best way to add dried healthy fruits to a home made mix.
 
Its all up to you how dry you want them. I like them a little chewy so about 5-6 hrs for the critters I leave them closer to 8/9 hrs.
The raspberries took 12 hrs to get to the consistency my bf wanted. I'm not a fan of the dried raspberries, but the rasp-apple fruit leather is delish and so naturally sweet its amazing!
I think talking about dehydrators is still on topic. Its about making food for our bubs thats healthy and tasty. I have a 9 lb bag of apples to do next as rings just coring the apples thats a pain. I leave the skin on because I lack fibre in my diet always it seems so keeps natural fibre in a healthy snack.
 
OK! So it took a longer time to get to starting this project haha!
Anyway. We got all our ingredients and we did some math for how much of each to add. My (ex)fiance did the prep while I was at work. I got to do all the fun messy part of mixing and shaping.
Its in the dehydrator now! It smells good. It is green because I like green peas and we always have those in the house. So just used them. I think it looks cute lime green! And like the rats will care haha!
We used juiced spinach as our "water" and then added the spinach pulp to the mix so I think that also has a lot to do with the colour! We made some apple juice so we used the pulp from that as well to naturally sweeten and add natural sugars and fibre. It smells so good in the dehydrator right now. Like apple pie ;) kind of.
I will post a step by step when I'm certain I'm happy with the finished product. We're trying a few batches and cooking/drying them differently. This is batch #1 which was baked like a cake/brownies on low for half an hour and then cut into chunks and put in the dehydrator. Its almost been an hour so I'll do a spot check and see how she goes! I'm excited!
If this works it only cost me $40 for the ingredients and so far we've used 1/4 of each bag to make the dry part and only 1/4 of that went into one batch so for about 2lbs of food its cost $5! A 3lb bag of Oxbow goes for $15 min around here! So we're definitely ahead!
 
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Why spinach juice? Just wondering because large amounts everyday have negative affects on the kidneys and bladder (oxalates) and also the nitrates everyday can lead to cancer.
Of course I have no idea how much spinach juice is in it haha I'd probably just look to kale first for a green liquid
 
We had spinach in the fridge that needed to be used. There is maybe 1/4cup in the whole batch, though we watered it down. And this batch will maybe feed them for 3 days. I do have 20 rats and two mice to feed. Hence why I want to save money on food. Instead of $15 a week it will be $5 for food.
We will make bigger batches now that we know it works.
The next batch will have pureed banana instead of apple. This way we can keep it new, exciting and healthy.
I am not worried about what colour it turna out. As long as its complete, tasty and cheaper to make then buying premade with goodness knows what additives.
 
Why banana and apple? That's a lot of sugar for every day... I'd love to see your numbers, especially curious on the % of sugar in there.
I understand you're doing it for money saving but o just thought spinach was a potentially bad choice for the kidneys.
 
If you look at ingredients in prepared rat foods there is banana or apple of some kind. Its one apple in 2lbs of food. Same will go for the banana. Its all natural sugars. It was also double juiced apple pulp so most of the sugar is in the juice. Which I enjoyed.
The spinach was minute as well. And kale in large amounts daily can also be dangerous. Everything in moderation right!

We are working on a lower protien higher fibre version for the guinea pigs and degus as well.

I followed the guide of the other recipe that was posted earlier. Modified it to whats locally available.
 
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Well the equivalent amount of spinach has roughly 45 times the amount of oxalates that kale does but I digress.

I couldn't find any good rat lab blocks that have apple, banana or other fruit in them.
Which ones were you looking at?
It's my understanding that sugar is 100% bad and any sugars hidden in other foods (like peas) is already more than enough. Of course I'm talking about the 85% of food that makes up their main diet and ignoring treats and fresh food. Do you plan on dropping all treats and fresh food or will these be worked into your analysis?
I saw the list posted before but there is no imperical/numerical data to back up the nutrition but I'm guessing that you did all the math to figure that out and substituted the math as you substituted ingredients.
 
I am not fussing with the numbers. I'm not a scientist, or a mathematician, or any good at math for that matter. I'm just aware of what a rat needs daily through research and speaking with my vet. He is anxious and excited to see how it turns out.

I won't post my recipe here as I feel a little judged. I just wanted to share my endeavour but if I'm going to be questioned at every turn I don't wish to have that any more.
Its like questioning a mother about how she feeds her kids, these are my children and I am just trying to do my best for them.

If someone wants my recipe I am happy to share it through personal message. I don't have fancy numbers. What I have is love, a veterinarian behind me and lots of research.
I have been feeding my elderly dogs a homemade diet for 4 years and the vet said they haven't been in this great of shape since they were 7 years old, they are nearly 15 now! And I couldn't tell you what percentage of anything is in their food. Just fresh healthy whole ingredients.
The thing that is messing with their diet is the rat food. My rats love the dogs and like to share their food. Its so high in processed grains my heavier dog has had trouble maintaining her weight. We chose whole grains, with healthy fibre that my dogs system is already used to so that should the rats share this new food with the dogs it won't interfere with their diet.
So far they don't want to share!

Sorry for the slight rant but I feel a little pushed to defend myself. Which I should not have too.
If I said I'm feeding them frozen corn, sugar cubes and sardines I could understand the correction but I am feeding fresh foods, processed at home by me I know exactly whats going into my babies' stomachs. I strive for a balance and I didn't take the shortcut of making a mix. I put time and thought into this.
 
I'm not judging you I just figured you were being careful and scientific about what you were doing. Thus I assumed I could ask questions. I figured there was a scientific and strong basis for every ingredient and the amount it was in. Im sorry my questions made you feel judged, that wasn't the intention. The intention was understanding the choices because I couldn't on my own. I think I got you confused with someone else who posted earlier about thoroughly researching and doing the math to figure out a truly healthy homemade diet and who welcomed questions so that was part of the problem and a mistake on my end.

I assumed we were more having a conversation... I just wanted to ask what your thoughts were and share what I knew and hopefully you would share your knowledge and reasons back but now I realize that you never openly asked for a conversation like that so I do feel bad.

I'll be happy to keep my questions to myself, I'm sure many users would like to see your results. I'm sorry I asked so much in the first place.
 
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I'm sorry you felt singled out there. I didn't mean you specifically. I am not a scientist and I did involve my vet as the closest to a scientist I could find (haha)

I am being careful and scientific as my brain can be.
There was someone who wanted to get all their numbers straight. I am not one to worry so much about exact measurements. I wanted something healthy, holistic and cost effective. I did record all my own measurements of what I put in it as far as cups, tablespoons etc. But I'm not going to try to figure out how much protien is in 1/8 of a cup of an ingredient. It changes when you process anyway and there is no way I could tell you 100% what the analysis of the food is without sending it to be tested at a lab.
Thats the truth of that. 1/4 cup of chickpeas changes density and protien absorbency in different forms. We used dried, ground chickpeas for example, lightly baked the mix then dried it. It would be different if we used canned or fresh and used them whole. The protien would absorb differently thus changing the daily intake. I know that but I cannot tell you exactly what the actual % comes to either way.


I welcome questions. Don't get me wrong. Just felt a bit picked at in my choices. Probably mostly due to my lack of general confidence. I easily second guess anything I do. I blamed myself for Peach and Mellow's deaths for a long time. Even though in the long run I did what I could for my babies.

To clarify:
We used spinach because we had it fresh onhand. We used apples to naturally sweeten because we make apple slices and juice at home. Was using what we had and its all natural. My guys would get apple once a week. Instead they are approx getting that piece of apple and just the most benefically nutritious part through a few days. As I said, each batch is about 2lbs of food and that will last maybe 3-4 days and thats being liberal.
I won't put apple puree in each batch. Maybe even any fruit in some. We are going to try different fruits and vegetables and see what works. Make sure taste is there as well as nutrition. All good if its nutritionally balanced, if they won't eat it then what's the point right!?
We will likely not use any fruit in the future as we'd like to be able to give it as a treat to all our animals and the degus cannot have any fruit sugar or high sugar vegetables often.

I still choose to hold my recipe for those who want it. The base is easy enough. I just added other things to it to make it more palatable and fun.


Again I'm sorry you felt singled out. Its just more my personal feelings
 
Sterling I'm sorry you felt like you needed to defend yourself but I have to admit I am curious about the recipe as well or more so the thought process behind it. I don't currently have any rats but I am going through the process of trying to create a proper homemade diet for my dog who is prone to CaOx bladder stones and am kind of using this thread (along with many other things of course) to make sure I have my bases covered. It's funny because when I'm planning my meals I don't put anywhere near as much thought into it as I am with this dog diet but I guess that's all part of being a fur parent :giggle: And again I really do hope you will share your thought process/recipe.

Edit: You beat me to it! I will pm you :)
http://www.ratshackforum.com//www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/
 
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It's much easier feeding a home made diet for dogs than for rats. For dogs, there are TONS of recipes online to follow. It's pretty much meat and some mushed down veggies. Rats...not so much. Rats need carbs, low protein, low fat so it's a little different and really should be done with great care. Changing it up every 3 days, now that's an idea I haven't thought of. I like that. But for me to say yes, go for it, I need to see the numbers. Otherwise, anyone reading this should be careful and not just do whatever they feel is healthy for their rats. Rats have specific daily requirements for nutrients, vitamins, macronutrients and so on.
 
I don't plan on always switching it up. The batch we made happens to be 3 days worth. It was the test batch. Once we find the exact working recipe we will likely keep it at that. I'm slowly introducing it in addition to their Oxbow. I'm not just going to leave them with food thats still in experimental stages. Just figure in 3days I'll see the end result of how the food digests and the smell haha
We have rethought the fresh fibrous food and may go with some sweet potato or carrot instead of apple or spinach. And save the fruit for treats.
I have done the research on all the micronutrients and what natural sources to use. Thats how we chose our dry ingredients. If you look at Oxbow there is really only about 8 whole food ingredients., the rest is supplemented vitamins and minerals. So we looked at the vit & min and sourced whole foods and how best to preserve the nutrient needed. Like using small amount of ground dehulled sunflower seeds for protien and selenium.
 
So far... I was thinking oats, sweet potato, pumpkin, carrots, kale and tomatoes. I also want them to have blueberries and possibly bananas.
How are you doing yours? All in the dehydrator? I was thinking of lightly cooking, making it mushy and feeding it as a mush so they can't pick out. But if there's a better way?!?!?!
 
We cooked it a bit first, then dehydrated, we ground everything so that its mixed well. I only left the millet, sunflower seeds and flax seeds whole as they lose their nutrition value once ground.
Oats is one of the staple ingredients already along with chickpeas, lentils, barley, soybeans, soft wheat and dried peas.
Here's a picture of the finished kibble batch 1!
You can see the millet and flax and a bit of apple skin. We made it pretty hard like normal block. The green is from the spinach so second batch will likely be more orange/brown if we use carrot.

2b295fbc929b57530cadd68e97d92df0.jpg
 
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Oh, very cool, dehydrate after the light cooking. Great idea!
The only thing about flax, if it's not ground down, it has zero value...nobody, no even humans can digest through that shell.
 
If you grind your own flaxseeds in a coffee grinder and then keep it in an air tight container in the fridge, it will be good for 6 to 16 weeks. I would think it's much better to add it when you grind it, especially if it's too keep for a week's worth of food.
 

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