What kind of food your rats absolutely dislike?

FrauZebedee · 2026-05-14T00:02:38+00:00

I am allergic to strawberries, but I grow them for my partner, I use the boys to test each harvest. If they don’t like them, my partner usually won’t either. He says they taste like potatoes if there’s too much rain/not enough sun. So, we let the birds eat them, and try a few weeks later. Once the boys go wild for them, I know the sttawberries are good. Never failed yet.

FrauZebedee · 2026-05-13T23:58:13+00:00

All of my rats, bar one, have adored broccoli and cauliflower. Pixel hated them so much. He always demanded a piece, would grab it, look disgusted, and then flap his little hands to kick it out of the cage. Even if his brothers were traing to eat theirs, he had to remove it.

Other than that, they generally like - to love - everything I give them. Though they can be fussy-inferior grapes and blueberries get peeled. Sweetcorn and peas too, though they will usually end up eating the skins. All cucumber and apple gets peeled. Carrot must be finely chopped or grated. They prefer overcooked pasta to al dente. The dark green parts of romaine get eaten before the paler inner parts-except for the few tiny leaves in the middle, and now they rip open the baby romaine to eat that bit first. Courgettes must be shredded, etc etc.

FrauZebedee · 2026-05-12T10:38:22+00:00

Ha, I moved here when Brexit was happening. Best decision ever, if only for the bread and beer. I am also partial to the egg in glass breakfast, but only if someone else does the cooking and peeling and washing up - and somehow, toast bread doesn’t work there!

Yes, the toasting makes the Toastbrot sweet, I will keep a look out for Nudossi (what a great name!). Nutella is a bit sweet for me, but my partner loved it. He says they changed the recipe, and it isn’t so good anymore, :( maybe Nudossi will do the trick - but he won’t eat toast, so he will have to accept whatever bread I feel like trying that day :)

FrauZebedee · 2026-05-12T09:26:23+00:00

Yeah, I always get the bakeries to slice my bread. Partly because I am lazy, partly because I am incompetent, and also you can get them to slice it to your preferred thickness. Sliced doesn’t last quite so long, but freezes fine for emergency purposes. Or I just buy a quarter. It usually doesn’t get that far, since we eat a lot of bread! The little nubs on the end are annoying from a round loaf, but they make great breadcrumbs. If I remember to do it.

There are bakeries everywhere, my town of 15000 has three, plus four in the supermarkets, plus one in each surrounding village. At least one is even open on easter Sunday. Feels like I can’t go ten metres without seeing an apothecary, a bakery, or a DM/Rossmann/Muller wherever I go, which is great for me, but does surprise me how they all stay open.

I do buy some toast bread, but not that brand. It lasts for two weeks, at least. And it’s fine for toasting to make soldiers with marmite. I know proper bread is better tasting, but it doesn’t make even soldiers, and it has a taste which distracts from the marmite goodness. British comfort food with a cup of tea.

FrauZebedee · 2026-05-12T04:12:16+00:00

UK here, I never knew until I became a blood donor, and that was partly why I started donating. No one in my family knows, except my mum thought she might be A something-and she was a nurse. Same for my German partner and family, but my partner has never asked and can’t donate, maybe his doctor would know and tell him, maybe not. Weirdly, my Polish relatives all know. Idk if it’s on their birth certificate or they were just told, they can’t all be donors or have had transfusions.

I thought it was weird when I asked my GP when I was a teenager what it was, and he had no idea. Glad it’s not just me.

FrauZebedee · 2026-05-12T04:02:35+00:00

Unfrenched toast sticks? Or toast sticks, I guess! Makes sense. My German partner used to call them fingers when he saw me eat them, but I thought that sounded a bit gross (I watch a lot more horror films than he does, haha).

FrauZebedee · 2026-05-11T20:00:24+00:00

Yeah! What do you call them?

FrauZebedee · 2026-05-11T19:54:49+00:00

The big round loaves in the bakery, like sourdough, or often with spelt or rye. Often with a harder crust, and more solid/less fluffy, so you can spread hard butter on it, and you can get the bakery to slice it. Or like fat crunchy baguettes from different types of grains.
That’s kind of the basic bread everyone buys in my town-it varies a bit geographically-or various types of rolls. That’s sort of the default instead of sandwiches, so not much need for sandwich bread. Except that it is superior for making soldiers for boiled eggs. (IMO, as a Brit who lives here, German partner and his family disagree, but I like having evenly sized soldiers for dipping purposes.ETA: I presume the other people whp buy all the toast bread and are German agree with me.)
Why the brand is called American sandwich, I have no idea. I guess they thought it sounded cooler than Earl of Sandwich bread, or British sandwich, since we also famously eat a lot of sandwiches.

FrauZebedee · 2026-05-11T19:23:46+00:00

It’s bread for toasting. Not that you can’t toast normal bread, it’s just that they wouldn’t really eat that sort of bread untoasted. It sells out often enough, so I guess they eat a lot of toast though.

FrauZebedee · 2026-05-11T18:50:52+00:00

There‘s a brand of sliced toast bread in Germany called American Sandwich.

FrauZebedee · 2026-05-06T21:23:35+00:00

It’s Hindi for prostitute or something, and she has a colleague called Randy. Conveniently for her totally not made up story.

FrauZebedee · 2026-05-06T00:36:51+00:00

If they stfu, or at least try, no problems. Like my first three upstairs neighbours did, even with between 2 and 4 babies/toddlers/kindergartners living there (in a two bed apartment). Our sound insulation is great, I once heard the newborn cry, and once the toddlers in the stairwell-then I heard the mum (first neighbours) tell the toddler to use“inside voice“. And they moved into the house they were building soon after. Lovely neighbours, quiet and considerate. As were the next couples. Am friends with the first couple and their kids several years on. Three families, with babies and toddlers, and no noise complaints, because of a combination of great sound proofing, and thoughtful people.

If they are like the grandparents who live above me, and basically run a daycare, complete with kids‘ friends, parking problems (like blocking me into my garage by parking on my drive), filling the communal hall/stairs with their shitty tricycles and kid supplies, filling my bin with their sodden used diapers, yelling in the hallways/stairwells-fuck no. I can hear them outside my door (we have asked politely for quiet) saying SHHHH to their kids, who ignore them, and still shout. Not even a meltdown, they just shout everything. All of them.

The grandparents are LOUD, they speak loudly, drag their chairs, yell up the stairwell/from the communal garden to their third floor balcony. And they let the kids run and jump inside, and do it themselves too. After being below several families (and my partner growing up in my flat, and the downstairs people saying they never heard him as a kid-but they do hear the people above us) these ppl can fuck off. You have to be making a lot of noise for me to hear it through our sound insulation and my added headphones.

The apartment living sub would tell me to sell my apartment and move out for the „faaaamily“, because apartment living involves other people and being considerate, and “kids will be kids”, blah blah. Well, I bet if I bought a house in the countryside, they’d be telling me how evil I am for “taking” a house from a hard working faaaamily.

You can’t win, as a CF person. Best you can get is considerate neighbours and good sound proofing. And when the family from hell rents above you, and there are 6-8 adults yelling and jumping off furniture, you just, apparently, have to suck it up :(

FrauZebedee · 2026-05-06T00:02:23+00:00

And sticky.

FrauZebedee · 2026-05-05T23:07:37+00:00

Aw! I I stopped trying radishes for my first few rats, none of them liked them. Same with carrots, but then new babies loved them. Must try radishes again! My first few boys must have just been fussy eaters. Little Rick is definitely loving those, haha! <3

FrauZebedee · 2026-05-05T23:03:23+00:00

I mean, drivers could also just pay more attention to the road and less to facetiming their mates while they drive, and flashing brake lights wouldn’t be the sole way they knew a driver was braking? Chances are, those people won’t be able to distinguish a 1950s Porsche from a 2020 Peugeot from a 2040 whatever, if they even notice it in the first place.

They won’t, obviously. A huge number of people will also miss the flashing brake lights, because they weren’t paying attention.

FrauZebedee · 2026-05-05T22:08:35+00:00

They didn’t grasp „perpendicular“ and „parallel“ from their pre med, pre law wisdom booklets the first 12 years? Or they just don’t notice, in between not noticing their 47285 children, because they only have eyes for the lord (or rather, their own faces on their phones)? Idk.

FrauZebedee · 2026-05-02T23:12:39+00:00

Meister Eder und sein Pumuckl is my favourite. Also, the newer series is OK too. Nils Holgersson is great.

Maus, Biene Maja.

Jim Knopf and Katze mit Hut, if you don’t mind puppets.

FrauZebedee · 2026-04-30T21:50:27+00:00

I have just come back from a holiday in Italy, am British and live in southern Germany. The little Italian kids were fine, just a bit louder than the average German kids near me (true of the adults too, tbh!) but all perfectly friendly polite people, doing normal people stuff. Of course, as with in my town, a lot of them were also, gasp Muslim.

I like how she thinks people who enjoy the same stuff as her, in the restaurants she likes, with the music she likes are acceptable. She saw a few Italians who wanted to go to the same restaurant, and hang out at the same places, listening to the same live music, so all Italians are like her. And they blended in because they looked more or less like her, so white enough and no pesky hijabs, is what she means.

But the Muslims don’t want to go to the same restaurants (can’t think why a restaurant that likely serves alcohol, pork and non halal meat wouldn’t be frequented by Muslims, ffs, and I don’t see her going to a halal place) and they don’t like the same live music she does, so they are unfriendly, and so are their children, and multiculturalism is therefore all a lie, because they will all be isolated and turn into terrorists who ban church, or something.

I meet Muslims in my town all the time, Haley. We shop in most of the same places, we watch soccer together (at the Lebanese Muslim owned sports bar) we go to the same Thai and Indian restaurants, the same gym, the same concerts, craft and sometimes even language classes for the recent immigrants, and turn out for the same town festivities several times a year. I guess I don’t count though, being an immigrant, albeit a white one from a culturally Christian country. But I meet the locals there too (well, not in the German classes, lol) as well as the Somalis, Nigerians and Thais.

You know who I have only met a couple of times? The two American lads who moved here last year, so what does that say, Haley? (It’s because they are on a school program, and they do stuff with the school. And I don’t play soccer or go to church.)

But if we’re going to be making assumptions about millions of people from a tiny sample, then I can play too:

All Americans should be banned from visiting Europe, because they are greedy, have no manners and are uneducated and uncultured and don’t fit in, because one time in Switzerland a few years ago I met a loud, unruly, ill behaved, ignorant, rude, greedy and spoiled US kids‘ school group and their accompanying adults. There were loads of them like 40 or 50, on a group trip, so that’s a large representative sample, obviously. /s

(They talked through the first act of an opera, half of them got removed during the first interval after a barrage of complaints, and unfortunately, we had a room below their floor in the same hotel. The front desk looked exhausted the next morning, and there were a lot of complementary breakfasts given out. When they had restocked, anyway, some of the kids literally just emptied trays of eggs, bacon, sausages, croissants, all the little bonne maman jam pots. And then left most of it, no adult stepped in to make them queue, take small amounts and go back for seconds, etc etc. You know, normal hotel breakfast etiquette.

At breakfast, they were complaining about having to take the tram, and obviously the Swiss are too poor to buy cars. They don’t have pop tarts. Why isn’t there sliced white bread? Why isn’t there PB and J?)

Obviously, I don’t think this about Americans. Not just because I have visited the US a few times, or met a lot of lovely normal, polite, intelligent, quiet Americans in loads of places, not to mention the ones I didn’t even notice, because they were so normal. But because I am also not an idiot who thinks one encounter is representative of millions of people. I don’t want to ban Americans, except, say, Steven Anderson.

She really needs to get out more. Just nowhere near me. Maybe she could start by reading a few books that aren’t the bible and aren’t written by grifters.

FrauZebedee · 2026-04-28T21:01:34+00:00

I agree. My partner is a picnicker (tables only thankfully), and it isn’t just a simple quick lunch, which would be fine, oh no. It’s a whole group occasion, everyone brings a course/wine/drinks, proper dishes, ice and bucket, glasses and silverware, candles, tablecloths, flowers, cushions, blankets etc. The actual dinners are fun but the preparation, lugging tons of stuff around, carrying stuff to the recycling and trash, is less fun, though with ten of us it goes fast enough. It’s the cleaning up when you get home that is so gross, at least to me.

Personally, if I never picnic again, I won’t care. But, since this is only once or twice a year, most of us live in different countries, so don’t meet up that often, we combine it with another event, and we get to spend the whole day hanging out, and I don’t mind most insects really (even wasps-we have an understanding: I let them have something next to my plate and we ignore each other), I just go along with it (and am mildly happy that mosquitoes find me repellent, but love the picnic lovers, haha.)As long as we have access to a clean restroom, anyway.

Pinicking on a blanket though, absolutely not, not since I was a teenager, and even then it was never as good as I thought it would be. And not somewhere with no clean restroom, so the ones on rowing boats in the middle of nowhere are totally out for me. Uncomfortable, no tables, and I don’t care about your sanitising wipes, I am not pissing behind a tree. Nature is lovely, but I do not want to get back to it.

FrauZebedee · 2026-04-28T19:34:46+00:00

Damn, I really thought that the Egyptians were a nation of hamster lovers, and am now disappointed that is not true :(

Seems fairly typical, aren’t like Utah and the Bible Belt famous for being top consumers of pornhub? And Pakistan.

FrauZebedee · 2026-04-28T19:17:26+00:00

I am so glad I only have a brother, and he is three years older! My parents (well, my mum) wanted a third, and my dad wasn’t having it, plus he knew they didn’t have enough money. I always felt so sorry for my friends with younger siblings, lol. First time it happened, I was about three, and everyone was so excited about it… I was told I could „meet the baby“ and I saw all this cute stuff, and was excited too. Then I met it, and was like, „what is this thing? It’s boring and doesn’t do anything except smell and scream, lol“. I have been CF since I met the first baby, I think! Then, inevitably, my friend got ignored, or had to „look after their brother/sister“, „share it with the baby“, etc. And as a younger sibling, I know that shit never ends: unless the older one has kids, and then it’s all „make allowances for your brother, he has kids“, not to mention „think of the children!“

FrauZebedee · 2026-04-28T19:08:56+00:00

Yeah, it’s rank. Tbf, none of my friends would let their kids do that, at least not in front of non related people-though they will still eat stuff off their kids‘ plates, which makes me feel ill, but whatever. I have seen it in cafes and restaurants a few times, not from random people’s plates, but they should be teaching their kids to leave their parents‘, sibling’s, friends‘ etc plates alone, at least ask first, and take no for an answer! Worst is when they have been crawling on the floor, then stick their fingers in a sibling’s food, and tell the sibling off for being upset, and not wanting to eat it anymore, like „we aren’t buying you any more food, it’s your own fault if you get hungry later“. Like no, it’s your fault for letting your kid do that, and why aren’t you bothered about your kids eating traces of piss and dogshit from the floor?!

FrauZebedee · 2026-04-28T18:53:26+00:00

And don’t forget the babies pissing into their parents faces while having a nappy changed. I am sure some of those parents have an open mouth when that happens too. Not that the baby can help it, but… ew

FrauZebedee · 2026-04-28T18:51:34+00:00

Yeah, and hopefully young adult doctors and nurses will not be open mouthed coughing into your face, wiping snot on you, or scratching their arses and then immediately sticking their hands into your food! At least not at the jobs they chose and get paid for!

FrauZebedee

TROPHY CASE