What is a rodent's natural diet?
Rodents eat a variety of food depending on the settings. They do not have a specific diet and would mostly do with what’s available in any environment they find themselves. What a rodent eats depends on the type of rodent. While squirrels, rats, beavers, raccoons, and mice are some of the most the most commonly found rodents in the urban areas, they mostly just settle from leftover foods from the trash can and insects from the parks, sewers, and gardens.
Rodents have the ability to adapt to their environment; this adaptation includes having to make do with whatever food is available at their disposal provided it is edible. Rodents eat both cook and uncooked meal.
Depending on the environment and what’s available rodents natural diet can be divided into
1. Waste and thrash
Rodents like to scatter through the trash in search of food. They mostly eat dairy products and bread crumbs and would not hesitate to take a bite at leftover animal food such as dog, bird, or cat food. Rodents also have a sweet tooth for salt and leather products including clothes and shoes.
2. Meat Eaters
Rodents such as rats are known to eat meat and fish. They eat both fresh and rotten meat as their system is capable of digesting rotten food. They also consume the carcass of dead animals from roadside kills or other dead decomposing animals in the wild. In addition, most rodents eat insects in the wild and in the sewers. Insects provide them with a quick protein snack while they go in search of a more satisfying meal. Rats are drawn to thrash bins with leftover meat and fish as they are capable of sniffing it out from a far away distance.
3. Plant eaters
An example of a plant-eating rodent is the beaver, they eat twigs, barks and grass and other parts of a tree they can find. Although rats and mice also eat grass often that’s usually when there is no other food available. Other rodents such as porcupines and squirrels eat barks and cones while some others eat grains and seeds from plants and trees.
4. Fruit Eaters
In the wild, rodents eat fruits and berries as it is the most abundant food available in tropical environments. Squirrels especially eat fruits from trees while rats pick fruits from the ground. Rodents also search for fruits from the trash can in urban areas and would not pass on the opportunity to bite from fresh fruits left around the home.
5. Nut eaters
Rodents are opportunistic feeders and would not ignore nuts when in search of food. Squirrels, in particular, rely on nuts for food all year round; while other rodents such as rats, porcupines, and mice also eat nuts but do not go in search of them when hunting for food.
In general, rats are attracted to grains and seeds around the home and it is important that in order to reduce the population of rodents in the home, that you eliminate the easy access to seeds and grains by
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