Pet Pasta

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Okay, at first I thought they were going on and on about their amazing ingredients, only to have difficulty finding the actual ingredients. You have to go all the way into the product to see them, but atleast they have them up.

All 3 of their Pet Pasta flavors have Alfalfa in them, though. That's fine for other small animals, but alfalfa isn't digestible by rats. Something to keep in mind.
 
Rats can digest some alfalfa actually... they have a very large caecum where some digestion does occur like a herbivore. It is not true that alfalfa is bad for rats, or they shouldn't have any at all. It just shouldn't make up a large part of their diet.

Wee Companions rescue sells this product to benefit their rescue:

http://www.goosemoose.com/component/opt ... ,4014171.0
 
Sorry, I had meant to say "isn't really digestible," as in not something they process as easily as other things. Most of the information I've read said they don't digest it half as easily as they would most things, and the majority of the product is passed and not processed.

As I said, it's just something to keep in mind, not a reason not to feed it to them as a treat. If your kiddos suddenly had some stinky poo, or more of it, after eating them, that could be a factor. Up to the owner at that point if it's still a good treat.
 
As I understand it, alfalfa is like pea shells and the outer shell of the corn. It's cellulose and even humans can't digest them properly. But it still goes through.
Would that be correct?
 
That is correct Jo. But herbivores like rabbits (and rats even though they aren't exactly herbivores) have a large cecum (humans do not have) that contains microorganisms that break down the cellulose... It is then absorbed into the body when the feces are re-eaten (coprophagy).

In a human the cellulose goes right out and never provides any nutrients. Rats can practice coprophagy to some degree and actually get some nutrients from it.

I am terrible at explaining so I did a search and found there is actually an article on RMCA:

http://www.rmca.org/Articles/coprophagy.htm

In many of our lab diets they are formulated to provide all of the nutrients needed the first time through (I believe) but in the wild a rat would actually eat a lot of cellulose material!
 
Thanks for the link. You explained well... it was actually my oldest son who explained it to me a while back.
It sucks when your kids start to know more than you. :lol:
 
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