Tag Archives: small pets

Make Your Own Small Pet Food Mix

Posted by Ney@ShopahoicSavers.com on July 3, 2013 4 comments

As some of you might already know, we are the proud parents to three really cute ratty babies. Rats are not the most common pets to own and I think that this is part of the reason that their food is $15 a bag if you buy the special rat food mix at the pet store. Since we have owned our rats, we have done a little research on what they can and can’t eat. We have also acquired through various means some various foods that we can feed them.

We had-

– Dog food- one pet store told us to feed them this

– Rabbit food- I got a great deal on it

– Squirrel food- a friend gave it to me

– Whole wheat organic cheerios- aka people food that we didn’t like but they love

So I decided to mix them all together to make a rat food mix that actually doesn’t look too different from what they sell at the pet store for a lot less than $15 and they love it. I should also mention that we feed our rats a large variety of fruit and vegetable that we are also eating. Our little rats eat a lot better than people in some third world countries.

Make Your Own Small Pet Hammock

Posted by Ney@ShopahoicSavers.com on March 24, 2013 1 comments

I saw a really cute, little, pet hammock at the Pet store and I thought that Benny (our pet rat) might like one. I didn’t want to buy one without trying to make one first. We have a lot of clothes that we don’t want, sitting in our garage, left over from our last yard sale so I picked out a sweater I thought might work. I cut it below the arms to remove the top and make a double layered square. Then I cut it in half at the seams to make it a single layer. If you use a thinner material you might want to leave two layers but this material was thick enough. Then I took four large paper clips and clipped it onto the top of the cage. And Voilà a free pet Hammock!

Benny wasn’t too sure about it at first. She liked the soft material but we did end up putting her house underneath it for more support. Now she likes to sit up there and chill.

You might also be interested in my article “Free DIY Houses for Small Pets”

Free DIY Houses for Small Pets

Posted by Ney@ShopahoicSavers.com on January 30, 2013 None comments

Recently we ended up with a small rat as a pet. In the above picture you can see Benny enjoying a Milkbone. (Our local pet store told us you can feed rats dog food). We weren’t sure we were going to keep him so we didn’t want to spend a lot of money on his house or toys. You can also see a toilet paper tube in the background, another favorite and free toy for small, rodent pets. We originally made Benny’s house out of an empty Country Crock container.

As Benny got bigger, we got attached to our litttle guy and we realized he wasn’t going anywhere. Now he is too big for his butter tub house so we made him a house out of the bottom of a milk jug. The indented circle on the side was also a great size for a door.

As I was writing, I realized that we had also made a butter tub house for our hermit crabs. Yes, the one in the picture above is on his back and no I didn’t have to help him get up. The point of all of this is that small pets are often very happy with toys and houses made out of household items that we often throw away. I know that these things can often be very expensive at Pet Stores and honestly our little friends don’t know the difference.