Oxbow Essentials Adult Rat Food – 3 lb

Great product, highly recommended! Excellent
seller as well. Whole Oxbow product is the best for rats, rabbits, chinchillas, and other small animal.

it always comes in nice and fresh, my rats love how crunchy it is and any time i give them some it’s always a rush to stash it away for later. ( plus it doesn’t smell gross like some other pellets, it’s similar to how cat / dog kibble smells. )
the bag is sturdy and it won’t come ripped in the packaging, overall a good product for the price.

I mean, its rat food, so I can only say so much. Its a lot of food for the price, and lasts a long time. When i had 18 rats(thanks for misgendering one of my two “boys” petco…), the bag went pretty quick, but that’s to be expected. My 2 boys(actual boys this time) go through a small bowl of this per day, and I have been just slowly wearing down the 20lbs bag for a long time, with no end in sight. I like to just buy it and forget it exists(in the sense that i dont need to worry about runningout) They seem to really like it, or at least they eat it, but i don’t really think they have a choice, so i cant really know. Maybe they just tolerate it, but hey, they seem to be happy and healthy. It feeds them, which is all it really needs to do. If you are worried about their happiness, let them out more, as that will have more of an impact than the flavor of their food haha

Good product. My ratties love it. I make a mix of seeds but Oxbow is anlther good option

My 4 girls love this have ordered more
Thanks from 4 hungery ratties 🙂

My rats love this food! They prefer it to all the other brands I’ve tried! And when I did research before I got my rats it was always this brand that came up as the best brand to feed my rats! 🙂

Gus said, “I generally grab the Oxbow and hoard it, along with the Mazuri cubes. I prefer to eat fresh food. But it’s nice to have something to fall back on …. Assuming Laslo doesn’t plunder my stash, the twit.”

Laslo said, “My pen mate doth protest too much. He wasn’t gonna eat that other stuff anyway, and if he wanted to protect his hoard, he should hide it better. And don’t listen to anything he said about the vet weighing him 80 grams lighter after a couple of months. It had NOTHING to do with my, uh, borrowing his Oxbow pellets.”

Fawn said: “My owner drops the Oxbows all over the cage for me to ‘hunt and gather,’ so I do. When push comes to shove, I eat ’em — especially when my owner cuts off the food supply to get me hungry enough to eat yogurt stuffed with yucky-tasting medicine. Don’t need meds, don’t want meds. I hate the vet. But Oxbow is okay. They say it has all my nutritional needs met. Hmmph. I still prefer cooked salmon and yam balls sweetened with brown sugar. Yum. Hey, was there medicine in that yam ball?”

Ears said: “First, I want to object to my owner changing my name from Dot to Ears, just because I’m the so-called ‘Dumbo’ breed of fancy rat. Nuff said. Oxbow’s good stuff. I’ll eat it as a snack, but since I know my owner is cooking up some REAL food, it’s never my first choice. I’m SO glad she doesn’t take the writing on the box seriously that says something like ‘Complete nutrition source for your rat — you need not feed anything else.’ Now THAT is a dangerous piece of advertising.”

Flo said, “Our owner didn’t rename me, ‘Ears’. Ha! I was Flo, and I’m still Flo. And I like Oxbow. But like Ears said, it’s kinda my backup food when I’m hungry and need to hit my stash of hoarded pellets. Some Mazuri, some Oxbow. Oxbow’s kinda nice because they’re sorta heart-shaped, while Mazuri is like a block of … well … Mazuri-stuff, I guess. My owner gets upset if I accidentally bite her taking an Oxbow out of her hands, cuz they’re smallish compared to Mazuri cubes. But by mealtime, I’m hungry, so all civility goes out the window. I’m a rat, hear me roar!”

Xena said, “Flo, Dot, and I came in to our owner’s possession in the same cage — we were rescued from Austin’s animal shelter from certain death. And my name stayed the same — until the vet techs decided to nickname me “Xena the Warrior Rat,” after some TV show. It’s got a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Oh, yes, the Oxbow. Oxbow okay. I eat it when I’m done with everything else. It’s on the same level as, uh, day-old lettuce. If I have a choice, I’ll eat the Oxbow instead of the wilted lettuce (which is usually on the verge of being thrown out of the cage anyway by my fastidious owner). Oxbow keeps longer than lettuce — but I’m not sure that’s a total plus. They say Twinkies last for centuries. Hmm… “

Oliver is out being fostered by a friend, but we (the owners) left the foster parent with plenty of Oxbow and Mazuri. Our two late rats, who passed away this year (Showboat and Snowplow) also liked Oxbow. We have three rats that we captured from Garrison Park in Austin and are using Oxbow to help socialize them and get used to eating out of our hands (without actually EATING our hands). We’ve named them Striipe, Spott, and Starr (named after distinguishing features on their fur pattern). Once they learn English, they’ll post their own reviews of Oxbow. Should be interesting to hear.

Keeping in mind how PICKY rats are (they’re totally snooty aficionados), you might not get immediately buy-in with Oxbow, but once they get the hang of this full-nutrition food, they … uh … hoard it, pretty much. Unless they’re REALLY hungry and can’t wait for fresh food. Then all bets are off.