Oliver's Burrow - Rodent & Small Mammal Supplies

29/08/2024

Oliver's Burrow Rat Mix 🌿🐭 - A daily dry mix for domestic rats.

A naturally healthy and tasty blend of specially selected grains, cereals, seeds, legumes, animal proteins, fruits, vegetables and herbs.

We only use high-quality ingredients and each ingredient has been specially selected and researched to create the perfect blend. 🍂🌾🌼🍃

www.oliversburrow.co.za
Email: [email protected]

Featuring "Zoey" from Purple Moon Rescue 💜

08/04/2024

Oliver's Burrow Hamster Mix 🐹🌿

Orders can be placed online, or our products can be found in some stores and practices. 🛒🛍
We offer a few different shipping options throughout South Africa. 📦

www.oliversburrow.co.za

08/04/2024

Oliver's Burrow Rat Mix 🐭🌿

Orders can be placed online, or our products can be found in some stores and practices. 🛒🛍
We offer a few different shipping options throughout South Africa. 📦

www.oliversburrow.co.za

12/03/2024

The importance of fresh food in a rat's diet : 🥕🥬🫐

Fresh food consists of varied vegetables, fruits, sprouts, and fresh herbs/plants. Sometimes, soaked and cooked grains and legumes as well.
A rat's natural diet in nature would consist of what they might find while foraging, and this excludes human stored foods and scraps. Rats living independently from humans would have a diet rich in plants, flowers, berries, grass seeds, root vegetables, vegetables, fruit, fungi, algae, shoots and insects (though rats have been known to hunt and may consume smaller animals.)
Their ideal diet would not be grain heavy, and although the right grains and starches may be beneficial in our domesticated rats, it should not make up the majority of their diet or be the only thing that they eat. A well formulated Dry Mix is a piece of a complete and balanced diet, rats need a minimum of 20% fresh food in their diet.
We personally recommend feeding up to 50% fresh food; fresh food should be offered daily. It can be given raw or lightly cooked either by being steamed or boiled for a few minutes. (Some vegetables may need to be cooked before being offered.)

Benefits of feeding varied fresh food :

Rats require a significant amount of enrichment and stimulation, fresh food provides a variety of different tastes, textures and allows them to participate in expression of natural behaviors such as foraging and self selection. Fresh food also provides a variety of nutrients and minerals that are more easily accessible and digestible for the body.
Much like us, rats have preferences, likes and dislikes when it comes to food; it's important to allow them to experience different flavours. They enjoy food just as much as we do!

Fresh food contains antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, varied fibres and other much needed components in order to maintain the health of their gut microbiome and immune system. It can be highly beneficial against inflammation and disease.

A diet high in fresh food can lead to softer stool, this is normal but it's an adjustment rat owners might need to get used to. It should however not cause diarrhea; rats that have not been fed fresh food or have not had much fresh food in their diet may develop slight diarrhea for a short period of time while their body adjusts, it's important to monitor every aspect of your rat's health.
It also takes time for them to learn about fresh food, taste, texture and what they enjoy and don't enjoy. The more variety they're offered the more adventurous they become.
Our rats always finish their bowl of fresh food, they sn**ch up their favorite pieces and then come back for the rest later, but the bowl is always licked clean! 🐭🌿

Being the curious creatures that they are, it usually doesn't take long for them to start trying out different things and enjoying their fresh food.

07/03/2024

Happy, healthy ratters! 🐭🌿

29/01/2024

We have some fresh batches available for the new month! 🌿🐹🐭

You can order your foodies via our online shop www.oliversburrow.co.za 😊 we offer varied shipping and collection options. 📦

Social media:

22/01/2024

22/01/2024

We have stock again of the Rat Mix & Hamster Mix! 😊

22/01/2024

We are back! We are fully stocked again for the year. 🐭🌿🐹

Shop online: www.oliversburrow.co.za

22/12/2023

12/11/2023

Oliver's Burrow dry mixes have been developed within the veterinary industry with professional knowledge and experience and are reccomended by trusted exotics veterinary professionals. Great love and care has gone into developing a safe and suitable diet for these exotic pets that up until our development, have had very limited options such as unsuitable mixes containing only sunflower seed, corn and peanuts amongst other variants and imported brands who are suitable however come as pellets and are often rejected by these species. There has been a large demand for a healthy, suitable and readily accepted dry mix and we are proud to be the original Rat Mix and Hamster Mix dry mixes. 🌿🐭🐹

We are a growing business but our priority will always remain the well-being and safety of rats and hamsters, Oliver's Burrow was started to make a change and therefore will never be run prioritizing profit, we care about your pets and come from within the veterinary field after all, it is in our nature! 💚

www.oliversburrow.co.za

03/09/2023

Our Hamster Mix won't be changing soon. 🩷🐹🌿
We hope this addresses some of the questions regarding this mix! There is so much information and complexity surrounding this topic, we summarized it as best we could.

21/06/2023

What to look for in a suitable dry mix for rats and hamsters? 🐹🌿🐭

1. Ingredients! You should always take a look at the ingredients list and ensure all ingredients are suitable for the intended species. Are the first 5 ingredients healthy? What are they? Are they identifiable or are they vague?

2. Guaranteed Analysis, this is where you'll find the product's protein, fat and fiber content. Ensure that this appropriately balanced!

3. Variety. Does the mix have a large variety of good ingredients? This is especially important for prevention of nutrient and mineral defiencies and providing enrichment.
A suitable dry mix should contain at least 15-20 individual ingredients.

4. Additives... A suitable dry mix should not contain additives such as: Sugar, Salt, Artificial Preservatives or Colourants.

5. Credibility, is the product being advertised honestly? Many products may claim to be "reccomended", "the best", "researched" or "based on" but will not provide references. All claims are required to provide evidence, as anyone can claim these things about their products. Credible claims stem from official studies, surveys and professionals (such as veterinarians or nutritionists), general members of the public may offer reviews but cannot provide these claims over a product, this is false advertising and misleading information and can be extremely harmful. Always ask for references and ensure credibility!

6. Packaging. This is important in ensuring that you are feeding clean and fresh food! Is the packaging sealed? Waterproof? Does it maintain freshness? Can it be easily damaged?

7. Background. Is the product appropriately researched? Where does the research stem from? Is it accurate and up-to-date?

These are a few tips to help you ensure that you are bringing home a suitable dry mix option for your fur babies, you have the right to know what you're feeding! Always seek out answers and education, it is the key to happy and healthy pets! 🌱💕

www.oliversburrow.co.za
[email protected]

08/06/2023

Did you know that you can find us at Exotic Vet Century City ? 🌿🐭🐹
They have some free samples for you to try! 💕

07/06/2023

Let's talk about dry mixes and their ingredients. 🌿

Balancing out a dry mix diet can be extremely difficult, especially when you bring in more variety. This has to be done in a very specific way with many different formulas, each ingredient's composition needs to be worked into the mix and considered.

It's not quite as simple as taking the protein, fat and fiber contents and adding it up, you need to look at specifically what fats the ingredients contain, are they saturated or unsaturated? Are they high in healthy unsaturated fats? Omega-3 fatty acids include: "alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). ALA is found mainly in plant oils such as flaxseed, soybean, and canola oils. DHA and EPA are found in fish and other seafood." We like to include salmon into our diets to ensure this!Omega-6 fatty acids are a type of polyunsaturated fat found in vegetable oils, nuts and seeds, an important one being gamma-Linolenic acid (GLA) found primarily in plant seed oils.

It's also important to take into consideration the calcium-phosphorus ratio of each ingredient.

Some healthy ingredients are used incorrectly, such as oats. Oats is a fantastic ingredient but it often gets used as a main ingredient; it is an ingredient with a high phosphorus content and can spike blood sugar levels (this may be influenced on how processed the oats are, the less processsed the better). It's an ingredient that should be included in a dry mix but should not make up the bulk of the mix or be the first ingredient. It's quite high in protein and fat compared to a grain like barley, and when used as a main ingredient can make it very hard to balance the mix. Barley is an amazing kidney-friendly grain, and has a lower phosphorus content as well as less saturated fat, it would be a more suitable main ingredient.

Sometimes in order to get the protein content of the mix up legumes will be used as a main ingredient and sometimes even the first. This would be ingredients such as lentils and peas, which are very high in protein and low in fat but also very high in phosphorus. Nor rats or hamsters are designed to eat primarily legumes, these are small parts of their natural diet.
Rats and hamsters are primarily grainivores, consuming a large number of grains, cereals and seeds. With exception, dwarf hamsters for example consume more small seeds than syrian hamsters would.

The position of each ingredient on the ingredients list of the mix is very important!

Sometimes a mix is low in it's fat content, and a popular ingredient to raise this is coconut.
Coconut offers very little nutrition and is 92% saturated fat. It is best suited as an occasional treat. This is once again where healthy and unhealthy fats need to be considered.

Rats and hamsters are omnivores so naturally a small portion of their diet should contain animal proteins, mainly insects. Some healthy additions to their fresh food would be plain chicken and scrambled egg.

Variety is crucial to ensure exposure to different nutrients and minerals, each ingredient has different quantities or something that others may not have at all. It also allows for a more enriching diet.

A dry mix should also not meet the exact nutritional requirements of the intended species' diet, as their diet will always require additional fresh foods which would fill in the gaps creating a complete diet.

We hope this gives some more insight into what actually goes into making a healthy dry mix and what to look out for! Your critters deserve to enjoy their food too. 🐹💕🐭

Online Shop 🛒: www.oliversburrow.co.za
Contact 💌 : [email protected]
Social Media 📷 :

28/05/2023

💜🐭

22/05/2023

Fresh Hamster Mix batches! 🐹🌿😋

Online Shop 🛒: www.oliversburrow.co.za
Contact 💌 : [email protected]
Social Media 📷 :

We ship nationwide & have pick-up points in Cape Town! 📦

12/05/2023

Take a look inside our dry mix bags! 😋🌿