A Detailed Guide to Common Feeds for Bamboo Rats and How to Combine Them
Roughage
Roughage makes up 60%-70% of the bamboo rat's daily diet. Bamboo rats are herbivorous animals with an extremely high digestion rate for crude fiber. Green feeds suitable for feeding bamboo rats include cogon grass stems, napier grass stalks, king grass stalks, thatch roots, bamboo stalks, bamboo roots, watermelon rind, corn stalks, corn husks, corn cobs, sugarcane tops, sugarcane stems, sugarcane tails, carrots, schefflera, mango branches, banyan branches, water willow, and so on.
Concentrate feed
It makes up 30%-40% of the daily diet. Concentrate feeds suitable for feeding bamboo rats include water chestnut, sweet potato, potato, jicama, corn, grain kernels, peanuts, mung beans, soybeans, cooked rice, and so on.
Mixed feed
Cornmeal 80%, wheat bran 8%, peanut bran 7%, fish meal 3%, bone meal 2%, plus salt and livestock growth promoter (such as Bidehao) added at 0.5% of the total feed weight. Mix the above raw materials evenly, moisten with cold boiled water (the humidity should be such that it forms a ball when squeezed by hand and falls apart when the hand is released), and feed; it is better to mix and feed on the spot; of course, making feed pellets with a pellet machine is also quite convenient, but the storage period should not be too long.
Medicinal feed
Administering medicine to bamboo rats is relatively difficult. Some of the wild roughage that bamboo rats naturally eat is itself Chinese herbal medicine, with disease-prevention and therapeutic effects:
1. Thatch root (white cogongrass rhizome) has a cooling and heat-relieving effect and can serve as a health-care feed during high-temperature summer periods.
2. Wild prickly ash (mountain pepper) has the effects of strengthening the stomach, promoting digestion, regulating qi, and killing parasites.
3. Goji (wolfberry) has the effect of clearing heat and cooling blood. When bamboo rats have a fever or excessive eye discharge, gather its roots and stems and feed them; this is one of the most commonly kept medicinal feeds among farmers.
4. Schefflera is suitable for colds, fever, sore and swollen throat, and swelling and pain from bruises. Regularly feeding schefflera roots and stems can prevent and treat influenza and heal internal and external injuries. This is one of the most commonly kept classic medicinal feeds among farmers.
5. Honeysuckle (Japanese honeysuckle) has the effect of clearing heat and detoxifying. Gathering its roots and stems in summer to feed bamboo rats can prevent and treat heatstroke, colds, and intestinal infections; this is one of the most commonly kept medicinal feeds among farmers.
6. Mung beans, fed cooked or made into mung bean porridge, can relieve summer heat.
7. Small-leaved banyan (banyan tree) has the effect of clearing heat and reducing inflammation. Gathering its roots and stems to feed bamboo rats can prevent and treat colds and conjunctivitis.