Hi everyone! I'm brand new here. I have two boys, Remy & Sebastian, who I love dearly. I feed Oxbow adult rat food, but the 5-pound bags have been on backorder for a week now. The pet supply store can get bigger bags, but I don't want to get a giant bag and end up wasting half of it because I only have the two rats. Is there another option for food for them that I might have luck finding in my small town with limited product availability? I'm even willing to make the food myself if necessary.
TwilightDawning
I buy the smaller bags either from Amazon or Chewy. Usually, if one doesn't have it, the other one does. If both happen to be out (only happened once) i will check Petsmart's website and have it delivered to the shop local to me, and pick it up there.
You can purchase a dog food storage container (Tractor Supply, Petco, PetSmart, and other stores sell them) and put the entirety of the large bag in it to keep it fresh. It costs less per pound when you buy the large bag also. The one I have, pictured below, is a Gamma2 Vittles Vault and holds 25 lbs of food.
![306199]( "306199")
How long is your order expected to be backordered?
I just ran out of Oxbow a week before an expected delivery so I ran to PetSmart and bought a 3 lb bag for $11. If your local stores don't carry Oxbow and it's just a temporary situation, you'd really be fine purchasing any rat-specific diet.
If you only have 2 rats, I would 100% not recommend purchasing large 20 pound bags of food. A 20 pound bag is almost a year's worth of food for 2 rats. Dry food has a shelf life. It doesn't stay good forever, especially once the packaging has been opened. I would suggest never keeping more than 2 months worth of food on hand. A 4-5 month supply might be okay if you're able to store it in the freezer.
The large 20 pound bags of Oxbow are great but only if you have a lot of rats. At any given time, I have 4 to 6 rats and I'm able to store the food in the freezer so that works out okay.
I just ran out of Oxbow a week before an expected delivery so I ran to PetSmart and bought a 3 lb bag for $11. If your local stores don't carry Oxbow and it's just a temporary situation, you'd really be fine purchasing any rat-specific diet.
If you only have 2 rats, I would 100% not recommend purchasing large 20 pound bags of food. A 20 pound bag is almost a year's worth of food for 2 rats. Dry food has a shelf life. It doesn't stay good forever, especially once the packaging has been opened. I would suggest never keeping more than 2 months worth of food on hand. A 4-5 month supply might be okay if you're able to store it in the freezer.
The large 20 pound bags of Oxbow are great but only if you have a lot of rats. At any given time, I have 4 to 6 rats and I'm able to store the food in the freezer so that works out okay.
You could always store a portion in a food storage bin, and put the rest in a freezer regardless of how many rats you have 🤷‍♀️
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