This is my first time participating in Frugal Fridays!!! I love Crystal's blog on Biblical Womanhood. I don't go a day without reading it! My Frugal Friday tips this week are for those with small animals as pets. I've had pet rats for almost four years now. Through that time, I've learned a lot of ways to spend less on them, but still give them a high quality of life.
The first idea I have is to make your own food mix. Buying from bulk food bins is a great idea. I've been making my own rat food for a while. It includes low protein dog food, multi colored pastas, granola, multi grain cereal, cranberries, dried bananas, and whatever other healthy things I can get for a good price.
Right now I have two rats- Donovan and Zebedee. I shop for their base diet every other month. I spend between $10 and $15 each time. When I first became a rat owner, I also had two rats- Nosi and Notti. I bought pre packaged rat food from the pet store for them. I shopped for the food at least two times a month and spent anywhere between $7 and $12 each time. My homemade diet gives me WAY MORE bang for my buck. Plus, it is very much more healthy for the rats, and they love it!
Suebee's Rat Diet is a well known diet in the rat community:
http://www.ratsrule.com/diet.html It can be modified to fit any ingredients you want to add or take away. For other small animal diets, I recommend doing some research on what you need to include. (Keep in mind, this is a base diet. A complete diet always includes a vast variety of fresh foods. Which, I might mention, is also pretty inexpensive when you feed your pets bits and pieces of the fresh foods you are eating. ;) )
My second idea is to make use of bedding/litter material that would otherwise be thrown out. My rats are kept on Critter Care natural pet bedding. This would be considered the "off brand" of Care Fresh (although I find Critter Care to be less dusty ;) ) When the price of this bedding went up, I found myself spending quite a bit more on it than I was used to. It only went up a dollar, but my stinky boys go through LOTS of bedding. My family started saving toilet paper and paper towel rolls, paper dixie cups, and cardboard of any kind (tissue boxes, pop tart boxes...) I just rip it up and use it along with the Critter Care. I NEVER would have guessed how much money this saves me. I can now use a bag that would usually last me 2 weeks anywhere from a month to a month and a half. That's a huge money saver!
Frugal Friday readers, please share any other frugal pet ideas you might have. Thanks and have a great weekend!
5 comments:
We don't have rats but we have a houseful of dogs and a cat. I like to make their food for health reasons but it really does save a fortune off of store bought foods... that are inferior quality, in my opinion. If you go to the really high quality foods, you are spending tons of money!
Great tips!
Oh, a rat lover! I love ratties! I don't have any at the moment (I have 2 cats, 2 ferrets and a dog), but I've had them in the past. I'm always telling people they make great pets. I'd give a kid a rat ten times faster than I'd give them a hamster. Nobody believes me when I say hamsters are nasty and rats are sweet!
Thanks to both of you for commenting!
lady why, you are SO right about the quality of food. For rats, there isn't anything on the market (other than some high quality lab blocks, but I prefer a diet of variety) that even comes close to meeting their nutritional needs.
mom2fur, cool! Another rat lover! You're right about rats being much more friendly than hamsters. It's hard to find a hamster that doesn't nip or bite. Out of 4 years of owning 11 rats, I've been bitten ONE time. I might mention that it was my fault. My rat Nosi was blind, and I put my finger through the bars! lol.
Oh boy, ratty rats! I always had rodent pets as a kid and loved the rats best. I have another tip for small-pet owners: only have females. They are far less stinky! Nowadays many pet stores only sell males and keep the females for breeding, but if you can get females, do. They tend to use a specific place for using the toilet (rabbits will use a litterbox) and female gerbils & rats (maybe males too?) will build amazing nests to sleep in if you give them those toilet paper & paper towel rolls. Just don't leave your nice shirt draped over their cage, as my dad once found out the hard way... it will be their most expensive nest ever.
Samara, there is a curtain covering our sewing closet right behind one of my cages. One morning I woke up to find that the rats had pulled most of the curtain into their cage. I'm sure they thought it made a great nest. ;)
You're right about boys being more smelly. I haven't had too much of a problem with my boys, as long as I clean their cage once a week, provide plenty of bedding, line the floors with fleece, and keep a bowl of baking soda close by. It does take some extra work. So girls are definitely a less smelly option. :)
And yes, both girl and boy rats make awesome nests! The boy cages always seem a little more unorganized though...
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