# Feeding an ill/old rat



## Skyerobin (Mar 31, 2016)

my rat, ripley, has been getting worse with his chf, and needs me to hand feed him soft foods now. i've been aiming to feed him approximately every two hours lately, including setting alarms to wake up throughout the night. i was just wondering if this seems necessary through the night? i don't want him to go hungry or be uncomfortable at all, but am thoroughly exhausting myself with this routine (not helping my various disabilities either). how often in the night would people here suggest i feed him? would it, in fact, be better to let him sleep for longer chunks of time anyway? i just really want to do the best for him, but keeping myself well enough to continue to do so as far as possible in the process. 

also thought i'd let folks here know how i've been doing his food, in case it's helpful to anyone. so i've been grinding his lab blocks (science select rat) to be very fine, and mixing that powder with water and various fruit/veggies. trying to keep his diet fairly varied and tasty so he's not missing out. he seems to be happily eating the various flavours i make for him at least. anyway, the reason i thought it could be helpful to mention what i'm doing is that today i got something called a mini food chopper (which are surprisingly inexpensive), which makes it much simpler and makes more variety possible (not just soft ingredients). i used it today to make a sweetcorn and pear puree which i then mixed with his powdered rat food and some water. it seems great for making small batches of puree - essentially baby food - which i figured could be helpful for people dealing with similar situations.
also: if anyone has any food/flavour combos to suggest, i'd love to hear em


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## dashielle89 (Apr 24, 2012)

Personally, I would rather base it off of how much he is eating rather than how often. I have dealt with a few older/sick rats that could no longer feed themselves well, and I usually only fed them about 3 times a day. I was more worried about water/dehydration than being hungry. But it has to do with your individual rat's personality/routine too.


I just had my almost 3.5 yo girl with CHF pts a few weeks ago. The last couple weeks she pretty much stopped eating on her own, and about a week before she stopped drinking on her own, so I had to feed her and give her sugar water by syringe and I only fed her 3x a day. She was a rat that ate a lot, and would eat almost all at once, so I didn't worry about spreading it out every couple of hours. I was actually really surprised when I found out how much she used to eat, since I had 3 other rats in the cage with her and before she stopped eating I would give them 2 cups (not measuring cups, just what I use to feed them) a day, and when she stopped eating 1 cup a day was too much for the other 3. And none of them are small. But anyway, the only times I worried about coming back to feed her again was when she wasn't feeling that well and didn't eat/drink as much as she should. I also judged it based on if she was hungry or not. If I put food in front of her and it looked like she wanted to get out of bed for it I'd feed her, if not I'd skip the feeding and let her sleep.


I didn't worry about a balanced diet so much at that point, so I pretty much gave her breakfast cereal, baby food, and whatever else I could find around that would be tasty and easy for her to eat (she surprisingly was very willing to eat a ton of shredded chicken nuggets)


I think it's easier to separate them into a little cage with nothing else in it except for what you're trying to feed them, for example a little bowl of baby food, and leave them there for as long as they need to eat. It might not work for you, but it usually did for me, and I found it better than hand feeding since they could stop and start up whenever they want, and it doesn't matter how painfully slow they are with it. If they aren't losing a noticeable amount of weight, you're probably giving plenty, although with these illnesses they may lose weight regardless. Unfortunately at the point where they can't feed themselves, they usually don't have much longer, but you make the best of it. 


Sorry if this isn't very helpful to you. That's just based on my experience with sick older rats.


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## lilspaz68 (Feb 24, 2007)

Being a person who works full-time I feed my sickies/oldies twice a day or 3 times depending on if they didn't eat much on the evening meal. I have had toothless rats living with tooth-ed rats and they both got lab block mush twice a day and were in great shape and condition all their lives.

Most rats sleep a lot during the day and most of the night, so getting up every 2 hours is not necessary at all.

Other ideas for your food processor is taking a bunch of healthy veggies (thawed corn, peas, broccoli, kale or spinach, etc) and make them into a mush, then I would mix it in with cooked oatmeal...this was a crazy hit for my kids. I am glad to hear you are using lab block powder for overall staple diet as well.


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## Skyerobin (Mar 31, 2016)

thanks for all the info/advice  last night erin bullied ripley a couple of times (i think from boredom, since the cage is converted to be more accessible to ripley). i've moved a bunch of entertaining things into the top half of the cage, which is separated, and kept erin up there for the night, with some mush in a dish for ripley in the bottom half. they still get on fine and comfort each other in the day (and i can monitor things too), so i'm thinking i'll start doing that every night, which means ripley has free access to food at night too. i might start getting up just once between the 8 hourly meds to check on things, and help ripley with food and water. the difficulty is that ripley has never been fond of eating soft food from dishes, so he still needs a bit of help, since he wont eat that way unless he really needs to.

ripley seems to be eating as much as i'll feed him on my finger, though getting grumpy after a certain amount of time (while continuing to eat of course). he eats about a tablespoon of mush at a time - any ideas how much he should be eating? he's a fairly large boy (though skinny now), i can sort out feedings according to that. the latest flavour is peas, broccoli and dessicated coconut with a little apple juice for sweetness. he seems very partial to it (peas have always been one of his favourites). the oatmeal idea's a good one, and i'll try that next i think. maybe something to give once a day alongside the powdered block food.


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## Kamira (Jul 15, 2015)

Not sure if this will help, but I'm going to quote this post I read off of goosemoose-

I have found, a 500g male rat should actually be getting around 118 calories (going by memory, might be a little more or less) per day. This amount should be increased or decreased depending on the animal's condition (overweight animals require fewer calories while underweight animals require more calories), activity (higher activity requires more calories), age (younger animals require more calories than older animals, though a senior animal whose body is starting to fail may actually require more calories too), and health (certain health conditions can lower body condition which will increase the need for calories).

In the case of this rat with surgery, I would make sure he's getting at least 120 nutrient-rich (healthy) calories a day, and adjust up or down as needed. His food should be divided up throughout the day, instead of receiving only a couple meals, so he has a continuous supply of energy instead of having to experience blood sugar rises and crashes. Being able to "graze" also helps an animal like a rat to achieve and maintain a healthy weight.

For a normal rat (for anyone else reading this) - I personally wouldn't be too concerned about counting calories for our rats as long as they are receiving a healthy, complete, balanced diet. As caretakers, we should be diligent about observing the condition of our animals. If they begin to gain too much weight, adjustments should be made to their diet to stop that weight gain: either restricting feed OR providing them with less calorie dense feed (more vegetable and less grain, for example). If an animal is on the light side, perhaps prepare to adjust the diet to provide more nutrient-rich (i.e. healthy) calories. 

I adjusted this to my female rat Zhuli , who is extremely underweight and right now weighs around 280grams and since 100 calories seemed too much for her to handle to gain any weight, I've settled down to around 70.
The problem is that my girl has a pituitary gland tumor and sometimes outright refuses to eat (I've been bitten trying to feed her) and so my main goal is to try and get as many calories into her as possible. About 3 weeks of me struggling to get healthy food into her and her continue to lose weight, and she finds a box of oreos I'd left in my room. Low and behold, my frail, elderly rat who can barely groom herself without falling over, had pulled one out, had opened it up and was licking the creme from the inside. 

One double-stuff oreo is 70 calories, which I then mash up with as much of her lab block as I can sneak in without her noticing. I then make it into a mush and feed it to her. I know its very bad for her, but at this point she is so skinny, I'm afraid she will die if she does not gain any weight or at least level it out so I can't see her ribcage. It also makes her incredibly happy, this rat bruxes and boggles whenever I give her the oreo mush through a syringe. She loves it and it is a godsend for the owner of a rat who has decided that no other foods are acceptable. Not baby-food, not ensure or pediasure, not fruits or vegetables, not eggs . . . I also give her a diluted solution of reduced sodium chicken broth, water, and as much turkey-tail mushroom extract as she'll take.

Best of luck to you and your rat! Hope the info and my little story can help you out.


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## Skyerobin (Mar 31, 2016)

thanks for that info. i'm not sure how to go about counting calories, but things seem to be going okay with ripley with what i'm using atm. i'll bare oreos in mind in case he stops eating, but for now he loves his mush with various tasty ingredients.

one thing i have been doing for a bit is including a bit of olive oil with his mush too, for the extra calories, and he seems to love it.

anyway, i last weighed him almost two weeks ago, and he was just under 520g (he's a big rat, so that is pretty skinny for him). i weighed him this morning and he's a better 545g now. hopefully this trend will continue. he takes just over 24 hours to eat the almost 200ml of mush i make him daily now (including 4tbsp of his block powder), from finger feedings as well as eating on his own when separated from his brother. feeling his back his muscle tone is also feeling a bit better in my opinion. he's still weak and unwell though, but I'm glad his weight is improving.


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