Feeding African Pouched Rats

Kali has a very wide variety of food and she seems very keen to try new things. Generally she prefers fuit to vegetables but she is always given both. Also she always has fresh water available.

If I feed her the same things everyday she gets bored of them and leaves them so I rotate her diet. It isn't very easy to know what she's eaten because Pouched Rats hoard their food in stashes. Kali stores her food around the edge of her nest and in the corners of the cage. There is always lots of food in these stashes when I clean her out.

Breakfast

For breakfast Kali has a mixture of parrot food, chipmunk food, two whole monkey nuts and the crusts off a slice of granary, or other seedy bread. The variety of parrot food changes but it always has a high nut and fruit content. Kali prefers the parrot food to the chipmunk food and will eat it first but by the next morning her food bowl is usually empty.

I feed her the monkey nuts by hand and she really seems to like to come and snatch them from me. She lets out delighted squeaks as she carries them back to her nest. At the end of the week, when I come to clean her out, I find most of the monkey nuts intact. She seems to enjoy collecting them rather than eating them!

I hang the bread crusts around her house and she climbs about to find them. She's only interested in them if the bread has a high seed content and the crusts have seeds on the outsides. It is the seeds she's after and she doesn't really eat the bread.

Tea

Between six and seven in the evening Kali gets a small handful of sunflower seeds. I scatter these around the floor of her house and wake her up to come and collect them. She lets out a little squeak every time she finds one.

Supper

Last thing at night Kali gets a small bowl of fruit and vegetables, see list in the next section. To stop her getting bored with her food I vary the exact make up from day to day. A few things remain favourites no matter how often she has them. She also has a few cooked items in the evenings left over from our meal.