Rat Feeding Series: Part 1
Author: Jasmin Gregory
PART 1 - TYPES OF BASE DIET
Feeding enrichment is one of the easiest and most accessible ways to increase mental stimulation for your rats, increase choice and control, and encourage natural foraging behaviours. As we covered in Alison Campbell’s Enrichment Series, rats benefit substantially from access to species specific enrichment and the ability to exhibit natural behaviours.
There are many different ways to do feeding enrichment, from Shunamite diets (pioneered by Alison Campbell), scatter feeding, foraging toys, treat mixes, and fresh feeding. Today we are going to give a brief overview of the types of base rat diets available, and in future updates we will discuss enriching feeding styles regardless of base diet.
Nutritionally complete pellets:
Let’s start with the types of diets available, for most pet parents we highly recommend a quality nutritionally complete pellet food as a staple diet. The rescue feeds Vetafarm’s Rodent Origins to all of the rats in our care, it’s suitable for all ages (including pregnant, lactating, and growing pups), and it is fortified to include essential vitamins and minerals to ensure adequate nutrition throughout all life stages.
The pros of nutritionally complete pellets:
We recommend feeding a nutritionally complete rat pellet as it takes all the guesswork out of ensuring your rats nutritional needs are met. They’re easy to use, you don’t have to do any calculating yourself and you don’t run the risk of missing key nutrients your rats need to live happy and healthy lives. Rats that don’t have adequate nutrition can experience stunted growth, poor health, dangerously low weights, and in extreme cases they can die of malnourishment, this is why complete pellets are the best option for most rat families.
The cons of nutritionally complete pellets:
Feeding only one type of food in a bowl can be a little boring for your rats (think about you having the same meal every day) but that doesn’t mean pellet diets are bad or can’t be enriching! It just provides an opportunity for you to get a little creative with how you present it, and what additional treats and fresh meals you provide.
You do need to be mindful however, that if you feed too much fresh, treats, or alternate foods you may still run the risk of nutritional deficiencies in your rats as the pellets have their vitamins and minerals calculated expecting you to feed at certain ratios, Vetafarm for example recommends 95% of your rats diet to be their pellets, with 5% being treats and fresh food.
What to know, look out for, and avoid when using store bought food:
You want to find a rat specific pellet, foods that advertise as being suitable for multiple species (such as rats and mice) should usually be avoided as different species have different nutritional requirements.
Never feed foods that are made for Guinea pigs or Rabbits, they have very different digestive systems and nutritional requirements than rats do. Rat’s cannot digest hay or grass, and eating it can cause a bowel impaction (which requires surgical intervention and can be fatal) if they eat too much.
Be careful not to use store bought mixes as base foods, these are rarely nutritionally complete and put your rats at high risk for malnutrition. This applies to mixes sold in pet stores as base food as well as treat mixes. Nutritionally complete pellets are a much safer alternative, within the rescue we have seen many malnourished rats whose parents were feeding store bought mixes not knowing the risks. Unfortunately just because something is stocked at a pet store does not mean it is safe, suitable, or effective.
Some pellets/block foods are made from waste products or “factory seconds” of human food manufacturing, this can include things like pieces of lollies/candy, chips/crisps, pasta, pieces of biscuits, pulp leftover from making plant milk etc. While these pellet foods are nutritionally balanced and fortified with vitamins and minerals, the quality of ingredients is much lower. The benefit to this kind of food is that they are often cheaper, so more accessible for people on low incomes or who are feeding very large groups. However, if you have the money to spend, we recommend you find a food that says “no byproducts” on the label (like Vetafarm does), or contact the manufacturer if you're unsure.
Shunamite diets:
The Shunamite diet is a nutritionally balanced homemade diet that requires a lot of research and knowledge to get right, but when you do it can be an incredibly rewarding and enriching way for your ratties to eat. The Schunamite diet was pioneered by Alison Campbell and it consists of a base mix (that includes nuts, seeds, whole grains, cereals, and fortified foods) and a daily fresh meal (consisting of a mix of fresh fruits, vegetables, fungi, and cooked grains/cereals). Shunamite diets can be tricky to get right, you have to ensure the protein, fat, and carbohydrate levels are suited to your rats' ages and life stages (pregnant, lactating, and growing rats need higher protein than older rats for example). Shunamite diets must also be accompanied by multivitamins to protect against nutritional deficiencies. We highly recommend Alison Campbell’s works, particularly her book “The Scuttling Gourmet” for more information.
The pros of Shunamite diets:
They are incredibly enriching, because they are made up of dozens of ingredients, your rats have a diverse range of foods available to them every day. Many people who feed Shunamite diets find them really rewarding also, there’s something really cool about collecting ingredients and adjusting mixes to your ratties preferences, ages, and life stages. Shunamite diets are typically very high in diverse types of fibres that can be harder to come by in pellet food (while pellet food has fibre included, it is often only one or a couple of types). While our understanding of all the benefits of fibre for the gut microbiome and overall health is still only just taking off, we do know that intake of fibre in rats is linked to healthier gut microbiome and maintenance of healthier weights (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8153313/), diabetes management (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6250803/), and could potentially assist in the management and prevention of other chronic illnesses. Gut microbes are as diverse as we are and all have their preferred foods, for this reason eating a diverse range of plants is ideal as they all have different fibre structures that feed different beneficial microbes in the gut (Fibre Fuelled, William John Bulsiewicz, 2022).
The cons of a Shunamite diet:
It’s “hard mode” rat feeding, there is a lot of information to take in and get yourself across in the beginning. To ensure your mix is nutritionally complete you need to do a lot of calculations, gather a lot of ingredients, and weigh the amount of food you’re giving them every day. Shunamite diets MUST be fed with a fresh daily meal to ensure nutritional balance, and multivitamins and calcium supplements should be given multiple times a week. They require an adjustment in how you feed your rats, not just what.
We do not recommend Shunamite diets for most people as the risks of nutritional deficiencies if you’re not on top of the base mix, fresh feeds, and regular supplements are not worth it, however if you’re a rat parent who’s interested in this style of feeding and would like to learn more we recommend you look at Alison’s work and join the Facebook group “Shunamite Diet USA” (despite its name it’s not only for people in America, it has many people from across the globe and a lot of excellent advice).
Final Words
Now that we have discussed the two main types of base diets, in two weeks (11 March) we will continue with a blog post of the different ways of feeding.
