Part 3 of 3 of Apex Vets Nutritional Series – Small Mammals!
Nutrition in small mammals
As January comes to a close, so does our first series on nutrition in exotic pet species. We hope you have enjoyed it and learned something about your scaly or feathered friends. This week we are going to cover the fluffier side of exotic animals. This includes small herbivores such as rabbits, guinea pigs and chinchillas, we will also cover rodents such as rats and mice as well as the wonderful ferrets.
Remember and let us know if there is anything that you would like us to cover!
To start with, let's cover rabbits. Rabbits are the third most common pet in the UK and have unique characteristics that make their diet and nutrition super important in their overall health. Rabbits are known as hindgut fermenters; this means that they ingest their food and it is passed into the colon and caecum. The colon separates the food into digestible and indigestible parts, the digestible part is then passed to the caecum where it mixes with bacteria to ferment for around 4 hours. This fermentation is where the nutrients and energy are released, and your rabbit will then poop this out in mucus-covered droppings known as caecotrophs (or caecals). These caecotrophs are eaten immediately and the protective mucus layer is dissolved by the stomach acid over a few hours and the nutritional contents and energy are absorbed by the small intestine. Lastly, the non-digestible part of the diet that passed out as faecal pellets and this high fibre content helps to keep the gut moving which is very important in rabbits.
The current recommendations for the split of the rabbit diet is to feed 85% of the diet as hay, this high amount of hay allows two main things; firstly is it helps with digestion as we covered above and helps the guts to continue working, secondly the roughage of the hay helps the rabbit grind their teeth to prevent overgrowth as rabbit teeth continuously grow throughout their life. The other split of the diet should be 10% as vegetables, and 5% as pellets. You can also offer the occasional bit of fruit as a treat but due to the high sugar content these should be fed sparingly.
For safe vegetables and fruit, you can visit the Rabbit Welfare Association and Fund for helpful information.
Guinea pigs are very similar to rabbits in the breakdown of how much of each food type to give. Each species have pellets designed specifically for them. Guinea pigs also produce and eat caecotrophs. Despite these similarities there are still some important differences. Guinea pigs, like humans, are not able to make their own vitamin C. Many good quality pellet diets will contain enough vitamin C for your guinea pig but sometimes additional supplementation is required, this can be done through choosing vegetables that contain high amounts of vitamin C. For a comprehensive table visit guinealynx.info or speak to your vet.
Next up let's discuss rats. Rats are omnivores and also incredibly smart so it's important to give them variety in their diet to prevent selective feeding. Rats are prone to obesity due to the nature of their diet as they often will pick foods high in fat and protein if offered a selection. Just like our other pet rodents there are pelleted diets designed specifically for rats, and these should consist about 80% of the diet. It's important when picking pellets that you get one that is specific for rats only, many pelleted diets will claim to be suitable for a variety of species, but they all have a mixture of nutritional requirements that could be missed by this blanket approach. The other 20% of the diet should be made up of fresh fruit and vegetables and protein sources such as boiled egg or chicken. The ratguide.com has a page on diet that can give you ideas on safe to eat foods for your pet rat.
Lastly we will cover ferrets. Ferrets can make wonderful pets and unlike the other animals we've discussed already they have a different gastrointestinal tract, meaning they have vastly different nutritional requirements. Information and studies on wild ferrets have suggested that the nutritional requirements of ferrets are high fat (>20%) and protein (>35-40%) and low in fiber (<5%). Cat food has often been suggested as an okay diet for ferrets but this is not the case. Cat and kitten diets often contain higher amounts of plant based ingredients such as corn and this should be avoided for our ferrets as they can impact the gastrointestinal tract and prevent your ferret from thriving. There are pelleted diets available for ferrets and we recommend when looking at them you check the fat, protein and fibre content and make sure they match the numbers stated above as closely as possible. There should also be a very high, ideally 100%, animal protein and fat content due to our ferrets being obligate carnivores. It is also good to provide a selection of supplemental foods such as boiled chicken, eggs or cooked meats/organs of animals such as sheep or cow.
This brings our nutritional showcase on exotic pets to a close. We hope you have enjoyed reading these articles and have learned something new. Nutrition is such a massive topic and is always being updated and changing with new studies coming out. At Apex Vets providing the best care for your pet includes nutritional advice and using evidence based medicine, this means we will be keeping an eye out on any new information that comes out. We also tailor our advice to you, our clients, and your beloved pets to give you the best care we can because at Apex Vets your pet is part of our family.
If you have any questions regarding your exotic pet please visit our exotic pet page on the website (https://www.apexvets.com/services/exotic-pets/) this will be getting updated regularly as we look to make it a database for information on all things exotic. If you have an exotic pet and would like to make an appointment with one of our exotic vets please call 01324829989 or you can request an appointment online;