Fruit and Veg for Rats
- Thread starter TigerCoastal
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lizardjasper
Well-Known Member
when I kept rats as pets, they loved corn on the cob - cooked or raw - and cooked pumpkin. They also loved the pumpkin seeds. Apple was another fabourite, as was blueberries and mango!
TigerCoastal
Well-Known Member
thanks for that everyone, the kids love the idea of bobbing for peas/corn, and they already hand feed fruit to them. Keep the strange/enriching ideas comming for the food, also what do you use for toys/entertainment for your rats? I like a challenge and am looking for some home-made ideas that i can give them to help entertain them. At the moment i have a hanging fruit skewer that i hang from the roof, some 3 inch card board tubes, and a cockatiel breeding box as a nesting box. I am not really interested in the running wheels, would rather give them exercise on something that is fun for the rats and fun for the family to watch.
big grasshoppers and locust... watch what happens to locust. crunch crunch crunch the only things left are the wings. I keep my rats in starmaid containers with small holes in the lid where fly get through, the rat catch the flys quiet easily.
Tail_less
New Member
Rats will, and can, eat just about anything. You really should stay away from raw potato but cooked is fine. Onion is poisonous to rats (ls it is for dogs) but I would be surprised if they ate it willingly anyway. Rats love fruit of all kinds and it is very good for them. Don't let them have peach seeds (the kernel has ****nic inside) but everything else is good. Cabbage should be ok . Favourites are peas, cooked spud, carrot (raw or cooked) banana and apple.
Junk food, salt and meat should be avoided. Unhealthy and in the case of dog food/meat it makes them and their poop stink and they can get very itchy and scratch their fur out. (Not pretty!)
Veg and fruit and cereals/grain is the best way to go. Oranges and tomatoes will mainly be rejected, some say too acidic for rats but others say their love them. I think rats will only eat what is good for them.
Provide heaps of clean water at all times. Rats cannot vomit so at least they will be able to wash it down or rinse their mouths/faces if it is unpleasant.
Junk food, salt and meat should be avoided. Unhealthy and in the case of dog food/meat it makes them and their poop stink and they can get very itchy and scratch their fur out. (Not pretty!)
Veg and fruit and cereals/grain is the best way to go. Oranges and tomatoes will mainly be rejected, some say too acidic for rats but others say their love them. I think rats will only eat what is good for them.
Provide heaps of clean water at all times. Rats cannot vomit so at least they will be able to wash it down or rinse their mouths/faces if it is unpleasant.
Either all the rats I've ever had have been weird, or the 'meat makes them aggressive' thing is a myth. Our rats are very friendly, and we give our pet rats meat (we have about 20-30 pet rats which are not used as breeders, they're just pets, yes, I know, it's lame :lol: ). The rats being used for snake food are on a more strict and consistent diet, but our pets get just about everything you can imagine, and we haven't found anything yet which will hurt them. If you stick a whole roast chicken in there they get so excited and devour the lot - bones and all. The other day we put the remains of a roast duck in with them, and they were thrilled! They never get the slightest bit aggressive towards each other or us.
Rats are naturally semi predatory, and if they don't get enough protein they'll breed poorly and often eat their own babies. It's not natural or healthy for a rat to be vegetarian. Any good rodent pellet will have some animal protein in it.
Rats are naturally semi predatory, and if they don't get enough protein they'll breed poorly and often eat their own babies. It's not natural or healthy for a rat to be vegetarian. Any good rodent pellet will have some animal protein in it.
W
wokka
Guest
Rats eat tonnes of macadamias in our orchard. They are amazing that out of a hole in the shell as big as a grain of rice they can eat the whole nut.
W
wokka
Guest
We have done trials between say 1000 breeders on vegetarian diet and 1000 on omnivorus of similiar protien levels, and theres no difference in weaning numbers or growth rates.
Very interesting, thanks for sharing that
I suppose what I've observed has been low protein vs high protein due to the difference between meat and no meat.
TigerCoastal
Well-Known Member
so is there any difference between vegetable protein and meat protein? The reason i ask is that i can get textured vegetable (soy) protein, it is used as a meat extender in the food industry,would there be any benefit to my rats if i mixed some of that into their food?
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