Everyone has a slightly different take on the this diet, because there is a lot of choice in the ingredients. Because I have a large number of rats, I make up the mix in large quantities. My mix is as follows:

• 9 scoops of base mix - Alpha Herbal Deluxe: 9 scoops
• 2 scoops of dog kibble - Burns brown rice and chicken or James Wellbeloved Senior turkey and rice
• 2 scoops of pasta - spirals or macaroni
• 7 scoops of breakfast cereals chosen from - Bite-Sized Shredded Wheat, broken Weetabix, Weight Watchers multigrain flakes with apple, plain wholegrain rice cakes, Jordan’s 4 grain porridge oats and sugar free puffed wheat.

Fresh Foods

My rats have fresh food every morning. I generally just raid the fridge and fruit bowl, though the family had never been fed kale before we had rats! The ratties tend to get: curly kale, broccoli, carrot, cauliflower, apple, pear, grapes, capsicum, sweetcorn, peas, cucumber. Some of these are more nutritious than others, but I figure that as long as they have a good variety they'll get what they need.

Leftovers

With their evening meal my rats get any suitable left-overs from our evening meal. They love bones to gnaw on, rice is popular, surprisingly they often prefer the vegetables to the meat they're given. I avoid giving them salty or spicy food, for my own sake as well as theirs as spices would make the cages smell more.

Treats

I'm afraid I'm not very good at giving my ratties treats. Bad mummy! Sometimes if they look interested in what we're eating they get a nibble, but by the way they receive their fruit and veg. I think they regard them as their treats.

Annette, February 2007