Product Review - PAH Rat Muesli
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Place Purchased: Pets At Home
Price: £1.99 for 1kg
Score: 7/10
ngredients: Extruded Biscuits (Wheat, Poultry Meat Meal (Chicken min. 4.5%), Sugar Beet Pellets, Egg, Fructo-Oligosaccharides), Toasted Barley Flakes, Toasted Oat Flakes, Whole Oats, Toasted Bean Flakes, Toasted Pea Flakes, Whole Maize, Toasted Maize Flakes, Whole Wheat, Carob Pods, Poultry Fat, Minerals and Vitamins
Typical Analysis: Moisture 12%, Protein 14%, Oils and Fats 4%, Fibre 5%, Ash 4%, Vitamin A 8000iu/kg, Vitamin D3 1200iu/kg, Vitamin E 30mg/kg, Copper as Cupric Sulphate 15mg/kg.
Pros:
PAH’s rat muesli is, on the whole, a much better quality mix than the average. Aside from the extruded biscuits, all the ingredients are clearly visible in the mix as individual flakes and grains, and they are clearly named on the ingredients list, e.g. “whole oats” and “toasted maize flakes”. This is a great improvement on the numerous low-quality mixes which have “derivatives of vegetable origin” all mangled together into coloured biscuits, which leave you wondering what these derivatives are and whether they have any nutritive value at all.
It also doesn’t have any of the black alfalfa pellets that are used to bulk out so many other mixes, despite the fact that virtually no rodent likes them and they contain virtually no nutrition anyway. And the variety of ingredients in this mix - including some that require husking by the mouse before eating, providing a little extra mental and physical stimulation - keeps mealtimes from becoming too boring, as they would be with homogenous pelleted mixes.
Finally, the protein and fat levels are roughly appropriate for an adult mouse, and the added vitamins and copper (which are standard in all but the cheapest, dodgiest mixes) help protect against nutrient deficiencies.
Cons:
My spiny mice refuse to eat the pea flakes and bean flakes, so there is still some wastage. And the poultry meat in this muesli is unlikely to be of very good quality (”meat meal” suggests mangled-up meat by-products that wouldn’t be suitable for human consumption), and almost certainly from intensively farmed birds, so I would not choose to buy this product personally - I only have it because it came free with my cage.
Overall:
On the whole, I would recommend this mix as a reasonable quality food for a mouse owner who doesn’t want to make his or her own homemade mix for whatever reason, and is willing to feed a product containing meat of questionable nutritional and ethical value. As Pets At Home have stores all over the UK, their rat muesli is relatively easy for most people to obtain, so I would also recommend it as a reasonable alternative to harder-to-find foods such as those used in the Shunamite diet. It’s also okay value for money.
However, I don’t feel PAH’s rat muesli is necessarily the best option for everyone, and I don’t plan on buying it again as I have found a homemade mix that both I and my spiny mice are happier with.
Reviewer: Cub
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