Homade food? Plz help

by Hugz Kuddles Fri 08 May 2020, 1:08 pm

Hey there! I’m intending to get three female mice when lockdown is over, I have everything prepared except food. Where I live there isn’t any mouse mix I could use, or even bird, gerbil, or rat food. I have realised I will need to make a homemade mix from scratch and am looking for advice, I really need help but please bear in mind there is NO commercial pet food where I live and I can’t order any online. Any help greatly appreciated.

by Robin~ Sat 09 May 2020, 8:58 am

Hello!

Please keep in mind a homemade mix will not work alone. Every food must have a pellet fortified for mice/rats within it so your mice do not become malnourished. If you are truly, truly unable to find any rat or mouse foods in your country perhaps mice aren’t the best option for you right now.

The other option would be to take a few more months and research the micronutrient requirements for mice and create a mix that has those amounts. There are no articles on the forum about this, so you’d have to do a deep dive through scientific papers, but it would be a valid option. However, I will say I’ve tried to dive down there once and got utterly lost, and I’ve heard getting a good mix on this front can be difficult without powdered supplementations, which can be very expensive.

I would also consider discussing diet with your chosen exotic vet. Hopefully they’ll have some advice from what they’ve seen others use.

by Hugz Kuddles Sat 09 May 2020, 9:18 am

Thanks for the advice, I’ve just discovered that the breeder I intend to purchase the mice from uses a commercial food, here is the breakdown of ingredients:

Composition
Grains (wheat 8.5%),
derivatives of vegetable origin,
vegetables (peas 7.5%, beetroot 3%, carrots 2%),
seeds,
fruit (raisins 3%),
vegetable protein extracts,
insects (mealworms 4%),
nuts,
minerals,
herbs,
MOS,
FOS,
calendula,
grape seed
Analytical constituents

Protein 16.5%, fat content 7.0%, crude fibre 6.5%, crude ash 5.0%, calcium 0.7%, phosphorus 0.35%
Additives/kg

Nutritional additives
Vitamin A 12000 IU, vitamin D3 1500 IU, vitamin E 990 mg, 3b103 (iron) 112 mg, 3b202 (iodine) 2 mg, E4 (copper) 11 mg, 3b502 (manganese) 88 mg, 3b603 (zinc) 82 mg, E8 (selenium) 0.24 mg, 3b815 (selenium) 0.11 mg
Technological Additives
Antioxidants

The breeder says she uses the food with success, so I’m wondering if it looks decent.

by Robin~ Sat 09 May 2020, 10:43 am

I popped the ingredients into a search in a mouse food document I have—it appears to be Versele Laga Mouse Nature. Overall not a huge fan of the variety and the protein is a bit high but at least it’s fortified. These problems can be fixed with a homemade mix. Smile

For a homemade mix, I semi-follow this guide made for hamsters with some tweak (for example, I feed fewer legumes since mice don’t need the extra protein).
http://hamsterhideout.com/forum/topic/113437-creating-a-homemade-hamster-diet/#entry1204421

I’ll link my homemade mix in a sec when I pop on my laptop (im currently on my phone) for a frame of reference. It’s not quite done yet since I’m still experimenting with what my mice like but the idea gets across.

by Robin~ Sat 09 May 2020, 5:11 pm

Here's the link to the homemade mix. I'm working on making it a bit more easy to use (ie no need for outside calculations) but I think the idea gets across. If you have any questions let me know!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LAAs7jCE31EEfQDf1mSmBHVay-Ybg6EePCOLimqUzyM/edit?usp=sharing

by Hugz Kuddles Sun 10 May 2020, 4:21 am

Thank you so much, I think I’m going to make a homemade mix with the commercial mix as a base. Thank you so much for the advice Smile

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