# Are lentils too fattening for rats?



## Leraine (Feb 21, 2014)

I have recently been sprouting lentils and giving them to my rats to eat. Today I noticed that my spayed female rat, Anna, who is around 7 months and weighs about 470g, has been eating just the lentil part and discarding the sprout... I am concerned about whether or not this is fattening, as I was hoping she would eat the whole thing so that her diet would include more vegetables. Does anyone have an opinion on this? 

She also gets around 3 types of fruit, and 3-6 types of veggies a day...sometimes she doesn't touch these, but she seems to go crazy for beans (which I feed sparingly) and the lentil part of lentil sprouts. Sometimes I will feed her some kind of grain, like soaked raw buckwheat, or cooked buckwheat, or oatmeal. This is all on top of a background of Oxbow Adult Regal Rat.

She doesn't LOOK obese yet, but she is definitely bigger than she used to be. Her diet in the past week has changed because I let her free roam all day with a younger, growing rat, who is fed a higher protein diet. She then gets into this younger rat's food bowl, which I try to keep available at all times in hopes of coaxing the young rat to eat more. 
3 weeks ago, Anna weighed 425g (at the time, she was pretty much just on Oxbow and fresh kale), but today, she's 470g. 50g in 3 weeks - is that too much weight gain, too fast? Should I stop giving her lentils and stick with leafy greens/carrots/tomatoes and Oxbow?


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## Isamurat (Jul 27, 2012)

lentils are fine in moderation, but if you feed extras like this you do need to reduce the dry food they get too. Plus sharing the babies food will also add in calories. Much like humans rats only need to eat as much as they can burn off, so by reducing the overall amount, or even only feeding the lentils once a week or so, it should improve things.

I would also look into the overal balance of her diet, if shes not touching her veg the liklihood is shes getting too much of other things so is quite full.


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## Leraine (Feb 21, 2014)

Thanks for your advice, Isamu! 

I did notice that she seemed to get noticeably larger when I had to cut down her free range time from 16 to only 2 hours a day, when I had to spend more time one-on-one with the new baby rat. Since they have been introduced smoothly, she is back up to a good 12 hours of free range time a day (of which she usually spends like 8 hours sleeping on the couch ). After the baby arrived, I stopped counting how much Oxbow pieces I would give her, so I am not sure what made her gain the weight so fast - late growth spurt? less free range time? increased amounts of Oxbow available? lentils? etc. 

Hopefully it was the decreased free range time, so that she can work on burning off those calories now that we are back to her regular play schedule. 

Yes, I also considered that she may be too full. I generally offer her veggies in the morning shortly after I wake up, in hopes that she will be hungry enough to eat it. She generally sleeps during the day until around 8pm, and when she gets up, I offer the vegetables. I'll leave her with just veggies + fruit for a few hours, in hopes that she will be hungry enough to eat them. Usually I wait a few hours before offering Oxbow.


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