Raw vegan pet rats

When we first got rats, I didn’t know anything about the nutritional requirements of your species. So when it came to feeding them, we just decided to share what we ourselves had been eating for almost 10 years: a raw plant-based diet. For the rats, this meant feeding them a good variety of seasonal foods including fruits, leafy and wild greens, greens, some soaked / sprouted grains, legumes, and a dry mix of whole grains, seeds, berries, and nuts.

The rats seemed to really enjoy the food I was giving them and they all looked very healthy and turned into lovely normal sized rats. They rarely needed to visit a vet.

As I started to learn more about rat nutrition, I started adding a few things like live mealworms and some fish. They never really looked very good after eating these foods and every time they ate live worms or insects, their behavior involved ripping or chewing on the carpet! They also got a lot more “wild”. This led me to conclude that since they were domesticated rats living in a domestic situation like pet rats, live meat or even dried meat was not really necessary as long as their nutritional requirements were met. When we didn’t give them meat, they were always much more peaceful, loving and happy. And so his diet became mostly raw vegan. Neither my partner nor I had been in the dairy for a long time for health reasons and thus was also excluded from their diet.

Today all of our rats enjoy a variety of seasonal foods as we believe this allows for good nutrient variation throughout the year, for example root vegetables and squash in the winter and more fruits and vegetables in the winter months. summer. Of course, there are always individual needs to consider. Each rat is unique as I am sure you already know!

Of course I’m always learning and I guess that will never stop (thankfully!). As rat keepers, we all constantly wish the best for our rats and providing them with a healthy diet is one of our priorities. Diet is never static either. It is constantly evolving as the needs of our rats change from day to day, season to season, and during cycles of growth, reproduction, pregnancy, and aging.

I am not advocating that you never feed your rats meat or fish if that is what you want to do. I am simply saying that your nutritional needs can be met by a vegan diet if good care is taken and I look forward to helping rat keepers along that path if they so choose.

Then there are the ethical and health considerations that can support the trend toward vegan-style eating. There have also been dietary studies (with rats / mice) indicating that a calorie restricted diet can help improve health and increase longevity.

Calorie restriction occurs naturally when you effortlessly follow a raw vegan diet. This can help prevent obesity that is often associated with breast lumps in women.

I’m sure our rats could live much longer with less disease and lumps etc. I still don’t have enough data within my own groups, but I know of a woman in Australia who has rats that live for about 4 years or more and are fed a high-raw vegan diet. He has rats with fewer tumors and health problems and they all appear healthy and well developed. Of course, there may also be genetic factors involved. It would be nice if more people fed their rats a vegan diet so that we can collect the data for years to come. If you are interested in collecting data on how to feed your rats a vegan diet, please contact me.

There is also a lot to consider these days when it comes to how to feed ourselves and our pets, for example the agricultural industry has been linked to the advancement of global warming and water scarcity. And then there are our polluted seas where our fish come from. Part of the reason I choose to be vegan is due to environmental considerations.

Just take a look at these stats:

* It takes about 300 gallons of water per day to produce food for a vegan, and more than 4,000 gallons of water per day to produce food for a carnivore.

* Save more water by not eating a pound of beef than by not showering for an entire year.

* Food for a vegan can be produced on only 1/6 of an acre of land, while it takes 3 1/4 acres of land to produce food for a carnivore.

* Vegans and vegetarians save more than 100 animals per year per person.

-Statistics taken from http://www.goveg.com.

Another reason people choose to go vegan or feed their pets a vegan diet is because of how people feel about life and the treatment of animals raised for food.

My personal dietary choices reflect my feeling for the right to life of other animals.

I do not want to consume products / foods that have involved the deliberate suffering of another animal to feed my pets or myself.

The reasoning behind me for feeding my rats a vegan diet is this. If I can provide a nutritionally complete vegan diet for my rats that promotes health, longevity, and well-being, and doesn’t harm animals in the process, why would I choose otherwise?