What do bamboo rats eat to grow fast? Is bamboo rat farming a scam?

Bamboo rats bring large market demand because of their three major values - food, economic and medicinal - and are therefore widely favored by farmers. So what do bamboo rats eat to grow fast? Is bamboo rat farming a scam? These are questions every farmer needs to consider.

According to available data, the bamboo rat is so named because it eats bamboo, so bamboo is the best feed for farming bamboo rats. They like to inhabit bamboo forests, masson pine forests and the grass beneath sunny mountain slopes, living underground in burrows. They are more active at night, eating little and sleeping a lot during the day, and feeding vigorously at night. Their activity patterns can be divided into activity cycles and rest cycles. They have no habit of drinking water; moisture is mostly taken in from food.

For adult male bamboo rats, feeding is mainly based on green and roughage such as bamboo leaves, bamboo stalks, bamboo shoots, corn stalks, reed stalks, sugarcane and carrots. The daily ration is: corn flour 55%, wheat bran 20%, peanut bran 15%, bone meal 3%, fish meal 7%. During the mating period of breeding male bamboo rats, the quantity and quality of sperm are related to scientific nutritional matching and balanced nutrient intake in ordinary times. It is necessary both to ensure the male bamboo rat takes in enough nutrition and not to feed the breeding rats too fat, which would affect the poor quality of the offspring.

For bamboo rat pups, regarding feed, the main point is the period within 3 months of age after weaning. Bamboo rat keepers can, according to the gradual growth and development of the young bamboo rats, feed them fresh, easy-to-digest feed rich in nutrients. For example, some fresh carrots, nutrient-rich sweet potatoes, fresh bamboo shoots and juicy melon rinds, supplemented with some concentrate such as corn, wheat bran and dried steamed buns. This is beneficial to the growth of bamboo rat pups.

Now let's talk about how to make commercial bamboo rats grow fast. If you want to raise seedlings into commercial bamboo rats, adding a little chicken feed or pig feed from the market to the usual concentrate is very necessary - provided you do not care about the taste of the bamboo rat meat. Of course, as long as it is added in moderation, it will not change the meat quality much, only increasing it slightly.

Also, feeding times should be regular: feed at around 7 in the morning, around 2 in the afternoon and around 8 in the evening, so it is best to feed within these time ranges every day.

The surrounding environment should not be too noisy; do not let outside sounds frequently frighten the bamboo rats, and do not frequently change the bamboo rat pool (that is, do not move the bamboo rats to this pool and then that pool - every time you change pools, the bamboo rats need a short period to adapt). If you cannot handle the problem of bamboo rats fighting, do not raise multiple animals together.

There are also reasons related to the bamboo rat's own physique and body, and the problem of bamboo rats growing slowly, which depends on how good the bamboo rat breed is.

Then some farmers will want to know: is bamboo rat farming really viable, and is bamboo rat farming a scam?

In fact, the bamboo rat is an animal belonging to the family Rhizomyidae, genus Rhizomys. It feeds on bamboo, silvergrass, plant stems and so on. It gets its name from eating bamboo. This wild species is very precious. Worldwide there are 3 genera and 6 species: 2 species of the genus Cryptomys (endemic to East Africa), 3 species of the genus Rhizomys, and 1 species of the genus Cannomys (endemic to Asia, found in south-central China, such as the Chenzhou area of Hunan Province). In China there is 1 genus and 3 species. They inhabit tropical and subtropical forests, thickets and bamboo forests in eastern Africa and southern Asia. It is large-bodied with plenty of meat, delicious in taste and rich in nutrition, and its fur is thick, dense and soft, giving it relatively high economic and medicinal value.

Moreover, it has already been farmed on a large scale in China and has become one of the farming industries with economic benefits, so artificially farmed bamboo rats are not a scam. However, note that wild hoary bamboo rats, large bamboo rats, Chinese bamboo rats and lesser bamboo rats are all national “three-have protected animals”, and catching them without authorization is illegal.