The Raw Diet For Rats

I met a lady at a feed store who was appalled at the idea of feeding rats whole oats. Apparently she was unaware that this is the "new thing", and it is actually quite healthy for the animals.

The diet consists of legume hay like alfalfa, and then supplementation of whole oats for fat and more fiber. You can also give some dog food occasionally and a mineral salt lick, to further balance out the required nutrients.

Alfalfa has been getting a bad rap lately. Veterinarians and pet owners alike are saying animals from rabbits, to rats, to guinea pigs, cannot eat alfalfa hay. This is simply not true. While it may be true that it is maybe a bit too high in nutrients, you can balance it out by purchasing mixed bales of alfalfa and grass hay. Before there were commercial rabbit pellets, rabbits ate alfalfa hay. Ever watch Of Mice and Men (1939)? Lennie mentions wanting to get up every morning and feed the rabbits alfalfa in their hutches.

Guinea pigs in Peru.

Guinea pigs can also live off of grass/alfalfa mix but will still need vitamin C supplementation as it is dried and not fresh greens. Fresh greens contain vitamin C. People who raise cavies in places like Peru, feed them fresh greens and grains like oats and/or corn. An alternative which is even better than the pelleted or alfalfa diet is letting them free range in a yard, to eat grass and other vegetation. Just make sure that your yard has no toxic plants, such as tomatoes (a part of the nightshade family, the greens are very toxic) or daffodils (the bulb is the most toxic part, but the plant itself is also toxic), and you may want to look into livestock guardians, even if your piggies aren't livestock, the predators don't know the difference! Ducks, geese, and dogs are quite effective, but make sure they don't think your piggies are food!

More and more pet owners are going "back to nature", how about you?

Further reading: Onesta Organics Blog, Myth - Rats cannot digest alfalfa.

Update 3/7/14: Having tried this diet myself now, I'm rather so-so about it. On one hand, the rats like it, they boggle often while eating it, my old timer even got more energy from it and lost weight, the problem is she lost too much weight and I put her back on kibble. My old hairless female also had a problem with it and lost a lot of weight, possibly because being hairless, the rat uses up more calories/energy to keep itself warm, that of which the alfalfa/grain diet is not sufficient enough to maintain them.

I'm not sure that it provides adequate calories or nutrition, it is certainly enough to maintain an adult but not an elderly adult or rat which requires more daily calories like a hairless, and I'm unsure as to if rat kittens could be raised off of it and not grow up to have health issues from deficiencies in diet.

Supplementing the rat diet with alfalfa and/or grass hay however sounds like a great idea to me, they love the stuff, particularly building nests with it!

Also some guidelines: only give a small handful of alfalfa, and a large scoop of grain, giving too much alfalfa leads to wasteful buildup as seen in the image above. Get steam rolled oats with molasses instead of plain whole oats, they seem to like the molasses steam rolled oats more and the molasses is good for them. Check your oats, molasses oats tend to mildew easier and there might even be mildew in the grain before you open the bag (though this is a mess up on the manufacturers part, it happens easily). If you find this, naturally, return the bag and get a new one from a different lot which is hopefully not contaminated. Mildew will make your rats sick, it can even cause abortions in goats.