what vegtables are baby rats allowed?

Question

I know adult rats are allowed a range of veggies but do some of them upset a baby rats stomach?

Answer 1

A baby rat should be eating the variety of vegetables that adults eat. The younger you can teach the baby to try a variety of foods, the healthier it will be for life.

Pet rats are also more trusting of their care-givers then wild rats are of humans in general. For this reason alone a pet rat baby is more willing to try a new veg without hesitation.

Rats (babies and adults) are in the habit of test-tasting a food before they eat a lot of it. At first you may find that the baby will refuse the food that you have offered it. This is normal, they are suspicious. To get them started, to let them know that the food is safe to eat, you would take the place of the mother rat and adopt the practice of letting the babies know what is and isn't good to eat.

Take a bite of the vegetable that you are offering the little ones. Chew it up, don't swallow it. Now blow in their faces, this allows them to smell the food on your breath. This alone could get them to eat it, or you may have to offer them some of the chewed food.

If at first they won't eat a piece of veg, don't give up, try again in a few days. It is for their better health that they learn to eat a variety of foods.

Links to reputable rat-keepers and how they feed their rats. I have followed their advice for years.
http://search.yahoo.com/search?search=Feeding+your+rats&ei=UTF-8&fr=ks-ans&ico-yahoo-search-value=http%3A%2F%2Frds.yahoo.com%2F_ylt%3DAqFmYLsucJ9Ju1A_wytuo5cazKIX%2FSIG%3D111gjvvgj%2F*-http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.yahoo.com%2Fsearch&ico-wikipedia-search-value=http%3A%2F%2Frds.yahoo.com%2F_ylt%3DAjrR1DDgyctRMOV346dKZz4azKIX%2FSIG%3D11ia1qo58%2F**http%253a%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSpecial%253aSearch&p=Feeding+your+rats

Just a short list of what my rats like to eat:
In the way of fresh food, my rats eat: Apples, oranges, bananas, plums, grapes, avocados, kiwi, berries of all kinds, melons (water, cantaloupe, honeydew), potatoes, yams, all kinds of squash (all cooked), tomatoes, celery, spinach, a variety of greens, peas, corn, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, bok choy, sprouts (alfalfa, and bean), cooked beans, kale, carrots, rice milk, eggs, whole wheat bread, green peppers, nectarines, peaches, apricots, pears, pear/apples, tofu, frozen beans, Chinese cabbage, parsley, zuccini, cooked rice, all kinds of grains, coconut, and the list of foods just goes on and on.

The three most popular staple diets for rats are:
Debbie Ducommun Diet
http://www.ratfanclub.org/diet.html
Deb includes a lot of different fruits and vegies in her rat diet
Suebee diet
http://www.ratsrule.com/diet.html
SpazRats' Diet
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/petrats/81615/2


spazrats
"my life has gone to the rats"

Answer 2

Rats are clever creatures, even at the baby stage. Not for nothing they adapt to and survive rat poison when it's distributed by pest controllers to get rid of them. Ever wonder why they survive? Because when they come up against a new food stuff they only taste a tiny sample rather than stuff themselves, no matter how hungry they are. That way they can test it and see what effect it might have on their system. It's an inbuilt survival mechanism which rats have and allow them to survive. Also, they are so hardy, they've been classified as the only mammal which would survive a world nuclear holocaust (scorpions and cockraoches been the other creatures).
So, by all means offer your baby rats various vegetables to try out: they'll only nibble at anything new to test it out at first anyway.
However, one veggie not so good for them because it gives them diarreah are tomatoes.

Answer 3

anything which a adult rat can eat is pretty good for baby rats. Just remember, baby rats need more protein than normal... (normal 10%, baby's about 15% RDA) All the rats I have owned were 8 weeks or older, so I'm not so sure when it comes to babies... look at these websites for dietry requirements of fancy rats.

Fancy rat forum diet's explained:
http://www.fancy-rats.co.uk/community/viewtopic.php?t=31041

The Shunamite Diet:
http://www.fancy-rats.co.uk/community/viewtopic.php?t=31042

Food for pregnant Does:
http://www.shunamiterats.co.uk/nutribreed.html

Edit: Another thing i just remembered is that rat's need vegetables as treats really. Rat's actually make their own Vitamin C, & hardly need to be fed it. i give carrot to my rats. they love it.
also, there is a belief that their are a couple of vegetables that rats cannot have (sweet corn; but this is only in america, due to the pesticides they use on corn. In Uk it's fine, although they like it dried)
basically, if you have babies, give them soy milk (not milk!!! the pasturising process is not good for them) a bowl of soy milk does wonders to a rat once/twice a week. with babies, give them some so milk as this has plenty of protein for them, helping them to grow into strong adult ratsies.

Answer 4

here's an excellent website for all your rat questions...this lady lives in my town, and is considered to be the rat expert. she's helped me out numerous times whenever i've had questions, etc.
www.ratfanclub.org/ratlady.html

Answer 5

From raising hundreds of them, I've never had one refuse vegies, after all in nature they'd eat almost all of them, certainly almost all fruits as well.