Product Review:
Critter Luv Yogurt Treats

A while back I went to Petco to get some supplies. It's almost impossible for me to just buy supplies and not get a treat or a toy or some such thing(s)....it's just too darn much fun to watch my ratties enjoying themselves! This particular day I looked at all the boxed treats. I saw some new ones which kind of grabbed my attention, because they had some truly superior drawings of a rattie, guinea pig, and rabbit on the front. I had to have those drawings (drawing is a bit of an obsession for me). I thought, what the heck, I will have the drawings and the ratties might just like the treats. The name of the product is Critter Luv Bananas Small Animal Yogurt Treats with REAL FRUIT.

That evening, I took the box down to the basement, which is where my ratties all live in the summer when it's too hot upstairs. I opened the box and was surprised. I had expected something that looked like Vitakraft Yogurt Drops, but these looked completely different. It turned out that these were fried (apparently) banana chips with some greasy kind of white coating. I didn't think they looked very appetizing, but the ratties never ask me before they eat something whether or not it looks good to me.

I let the ratties out for playtime and passed out the treats. About 40% of the ratties dropped them immediately. This is not entirely shocking because they wanted to play. Another 30% or so took a nibble or two, set down or dropped it, and scampered away to play. The remaining 30% ate the treats then and there.

I had done similar experiments under similar conditions with the various flavors of Vitakraft yogurt drops. My rats strongly prefer the berry flavor, and about 95% of my rats will eat a berry yogurt drop even if they have just been let out to play.

After playing awhile, some of the rats decided that these treats were worth pausing for. At the end of playtime I passed out the rest of the box into the various cages, then I fed them their normal dinner and went upstairs for the night. I checked the cages the next day and there were no banana yogurt treats left.

The test group included about 40 rats, evenly split by gender, ages ranging from four weeks or so up to two years. The test group is a tad spoiled if I do say so myself.

My conclusion is that rats like these treats, but not as much as, for instance, fresh bananas (which I know from experience they will inhaleregardless of playtime) or Vitakraft yogurt drops. For what I spent on the box of treats I could have gotten about three or four pounds of bananas, and from both a nutritional and a value perspective, that would have been a better way to spend the money. However, these are still an acceptable treat for ratties.

All products reviewed become the property of Rat & Mouse Club of America.