[Giannapalma4444]

Hi there! so ever since i got my rats I’ve tried many times to do the shunamite diet, but it’s honestly never worked out for me & my rats too much, they always pick out the stuff they wanna eat, which is usually typical in rats but the would completely ignore the kibble. I use the oxbow essential adult rat food & they never eat it. Sometimes i just leave a bowl of that in there cage & they like wont touch it, im trying to get them more used to it but I feel so bad & feel like I’m starving them or something. Anyways, any advice on like how to get them to eat it, or any good kibble reccomendations. I’ve heard of you leave it long enough like when they get hungry they’ll eat it but what if they don’t ???? I don’t know! I hate saying no to there cute faces but I know I have to be strict.

 

[RatPappy]

I know where you're coming from. It's rough when you're Rats don't care for the food you give them. You can find recipes for healthy homemade diets aplenty on the Forum. As for commercial foods my boys liked Harlan Teklad very much. They make foods with a variety of protein percentages for Rats at different stages of life also.

 

[CorbinDallasMyMan]

If you choose to feed your rats a mix, it would be a good idea to start carefully measuring out their daily portions, only giving them enough food to last until their next feeding.

Rats eat in the range of 15-25 grams of food per day. You could start by feeding them around 17 grams each and make adjustments as you go along depending on how fast they're going through their food.

Rats will eat their favorite bits first before moving on to the other stuff. If they have an unlimited supply of their favorite bits, they'll never eat the other stuff and they won't be getting a nutritionally complete diet.

Personally, I think the Shunamite diet (as it's popularly used) may not be very good for rats. Unless you have a lot of dietary knowledge, it would be very easy to screw everything up because the measurements are based on volume, not nutritional value. For example, a very simplified version of the Shunamite diet calls for 5% "protein element" by volume. The problem with that is it is very imprecise. If you use a grain-based dog food, it could be 20% protein but if you use dried meal worms, it's 50% protein! Which would be correct? Is one too little? Is the other too much?

 

[RatPappy]

Yes, Rats are very particular about food preferences. I ended up with a bowl full of rejected pieces-mostly alfalfa pellets in my experience-before discovering HT.

 

[CorbinDallasMyMan]

I ended up with a bowl full of rejected pieces-mostly alfalfa pellets in my experience-before discovering HT.

Yeah, that's another issue with commercial mixes. Alfalfa pellets aren't really rat food and they often won't eat them. Unfortunately, the nutritional analysis is based on the inclusion of the alfalfa and if your rats aren't eating those pellets (which they probably shouldn't), they're not getting all of the nutrients offered from the mix. They might not be getting enough calcium or other vitamins found in alfalfa.