Calories in a mouse? RodentPro's Nutrition Analysis

[nwc]

Thirty calories per mouse is what I've often read online. But Rodent Pro's "guaranteed analysis" (here, for example) puts it a bit higher for even small mice. Medium average at a minimum of twice that. What gives with the discrepancy?

 

[dhammagirl]

Yeah, back when I started feeding raw I came up with the calculation of about 48 calories per ounce for mouse.

 

[danteshuman]

Do cats even eat frozen mice? How many does your cat want to eat in a day? Do you thaw them first? So many questions!

My first instinct is to say if your cat looks hungry, feed them more.

Lastly my chubby house cats always prefer their dry/wet food to a freshly caught bird.

 

[dhammagirl]

My indoor-only boy Zeke loves whole mice! I put them out to thaw overnight. Depending on the size/weight, he gets up to four (0.6oz)mice for breakfast.
My kittygirl Chloe goes outside and sometimes catches and eats birds and shrews. She snubbed the thawed mice.

 

[Azazel]

Lastly my chubby house cats always prefer their dry/wet food to a freshly caught bird.

Well, kibble is coated with animal digest. It’s junk food for cats.

 

[danteshuman]

I know it is Frosted Flakes for cats! That is why my growing boy gets 2, 3 oz cans plus only a 1/4 cup or less of dry per day. He is still growing at 16 months, so I hesitate to restrict him/force him to eat only wet until he is 2 years old.

Still he would choose wet ) especially with fish) over a freshly caught bird. As have all my previous cats, hence my question.

 

[danteshuman]

My indoor-only boy Zeke loves whole mice! I put them out to thaw overnight. Depending on the size/weight, he gets up to four (0.6oz)mice for breakfast.
My kittygirl Chloe goes outside and sometimes catches and eats birds and shrews. She snubbed the thawed mice.

Thank you!

 

[Willowy]

I have snakes so I have a constant supply of frozen rats. If the snakes don't feel like eating the cats get the leftovers, and if the snakes are eating well I'll thaw some just for the cats occasionally. Some of my cats will eat the rats, some won't.

Yes, they're thawed first (and warmed up for the snakes; I don't know how picky cats are about that). I get mine from The Big Cheese Rodent Factory, but RodentPro is good too.

20-30 kcals per mouse seems extremely low just based on what I know of the usual caloric content of meat. Pretty sure a snake couldn't get by on that kind of caloric intake.

RodentPro's full nutritional analysis says that adult mice have 5.25 kcal per gram, and adult rats have 6.37 kcal per gram. That seems more realistic.
https://www.rodentpro.com/informationcenter/resources/nutrient-composition-of-whole-vertebrate-prey

 

[Willow's Mom]

Do cats even eat frozen mice? How many does your cat want to eat in a day? Do you thaw them first? So many questions!

My Willow adores them. I got her started on pinkies ASAP because I was pretty sure she would accept them. She is not a true feral, but her mother was an abandoned pet who certainly looked like she wasn't a first-time mother or a teen mom the one glance I got of her. According to what I had read on the internet, it might be more difficult to get a well-bred purebred who had been able to stay with their mom and siblings to 16 weeks to recognize frozen rodents as food.

I cannot afford to feed my spoiled wotten widda pwincess an exclusively whole prey diet. When I couldn't get ahold of my local supplier over the holidays, we went to Petco to get Willow by and found out that it would cost >$20/day at their prices to feed one small kitten.

You thaw the rodents first. Overnight is best, but the smaller ones thaw faster. I'd start Jackie on pinkies if I were you, and depending on your comfort level and experience in handling raw meat, you might be able to use them as training treats.

Willow is up to small-medium and medium rats now. Part of the reasoning behind that is simple supply and demand: it's what my local rodentry has available right now and I am 100% morally, emotionally, and financially supportive of the owner's decision to go into debt for a medical emergency in one of her rats. Pet fancy rat breeders haven't been that much more enlightened than pet dog breeders. When our furbabies get sick, we take care of them.

Willow eats 3-5 meals a day. A large mouse or weanling rat isn't quite a whole meal for her. A medium or small-medium rat fills her up and there's usually leftovers for the next meal: I'd say two meals if it's been a lazy cuddly day and more like 1 1/2 or 1 1/4 meals if we've been on the trail all day, but she eats fewer meals on those days anyway.

You get used to it after awhile. I've actually learned a lot about pet rodents since I started feeding Willow this way just because I'm curious. I started out thinking of the feeder rodents as "something disgusting I have to do because I love my kitten so much" but now I find the routines conmforting in a "circle of life" kind of way. By accepting the fact that my pwincess is a bloodthirsty killer, I think I'm able to cope with my own mortality a little bit better.

Each rodent is an individual. I can see their cute little whiskers and the beautiful colours of their fur. I can look them in the eye and thank them for their lives when I feed my kitten. I can know that those lives, however short, were good and that these little animals had the best food, the best care, and the best deaths that they possibly could.

There are more reasons to be squeamish about handling the human grade but factory farm raised meat that also makes up part of my pets' diets and the diets of the vast majority of my friends and neighbours.

If whole prey isn't Jackie's thing, my supplier did a grind for us with her food processor and wound up not needing to buy a meat grinder after all. You want everything in there so there's no flaying or pulling out guts or butchering involved at all.

I'd put Willow on an exclusively whole prey diet in a heartbeat if I could afford it and if I had suppliers of other protein sources that were even half as ethical as my rodentry.

 

[She's a witch]

W Willow's Mom , does Willow eat them from her bowl or does she take them away somewhere to eat?

 

[daftcat75]

Krista is toothless now. Could I just pick up some frozen mice and put them in my grinder for her? Do they need to be hairless? Anything else I should know about this/look for?

 

[Willow's Mom]

W Willow's Mom , does Willow eat them from her bowl or does she take them away somewhere to eat?

I'm not that enlightened yet.

I have dogs so my rule is that all carnivores have to eat in crates. Safe meat handling is something I still need to be 100% consciously aware of, just like a ten year old in her first Home Ec class.

 

[Willow's Mom]

Krista is toothless now. Could I just pick up some frozen mice and put them in my grinder for her? Do they need to be hairless? Anything else I should know about this/look for?

My supplier did this for me, but she said she just used her regular food processor. My understanding is that the cartilige and hides provide some protein and micronutrients as well as fiber, so we just left them on. You may need to add just a small amount of the grind to her regular food at first, the same way you would any new protein source.

I don't bother with EZComplete or supplements as long as I'm giving Willow the whole animal. The reasoning is that a mouse or a rat is the natural prey of domestic felines.

I have been using species-appropriate supplements for my dogs. They were bred to serve my species as "cat substitutes" but rodents are not their natural prey.

As far as anything else you should know, it's incredibly expensive but so worth it. Krista might enjoy pinkies as training treats even without any teeth. The only reason why I can do this at all is because I have a good relationship with my local rodentry and because there is a need.

These animals are humanely euthanized with CO2, which is expensive. Their food is expensive. Their socialization takes time. Their lives are naturally much shorter than our pet carnivores' and they haven't been domesticated as long, so we don't know as much about keeping them healthy. The people who breed and love them deserve our respect.

 

[She's a witch]

I'm not that enlightened yet.

I have dogs so my rule is that all carnivores have to eat in crates. Safe meat handling is something I still need to be 100% consciously aware of, just like a ten year old in her first Home Ec class.

Yeah, I’m pretty sure my cats would want to hide away with it to eat. They try to do this with bigger pieces of meat. I don’t have any crate, I’d need to figure this out before trying.

 

[daftcat75]

My supplier did this for me, but she said she just used her regular food processor. My understanding is that the cartilige and hides provide some protein and micronutrients as well as fiber, so we just left them on. You may need to add just a small amount of the grind to her regular food at first, the same way you would any new protein source.

I don't bother with EZComplete or supplements as long as I'm giving Willow the whole animal. The reasoning is that a mouse or a rat is the natural prey of domestic felines.

I have been using species-appropriate supplements for my dogs. They were bred to serve my species as "cat substitutes" but rodents are not their natural prey.

As far as anything else you should know, it's incredibly expensive but so worth it. Krista might enjoy pinkies as training treats even without any teeth. The only reason why I can do this at all is because I have a good relationship with my local rodentry and because there is a need.

These animals are humanely euthanized with CO2, which is expensive. Their food is expensive. Their socialization takes time. Their lives are naturally much shorter than our pet carnivores' and they haven't been domesticated as long, so we don't know as much about keeping them healthy. The people who breed and love them deserve our respect.

I wouldn't make mice her full time food, but to offset her canned which seems to be too much fat in her diet.

I just bought and butchered a couple of fryer rabbits for 1.5 pounds of leg meat and several batches worth of liver. Since I only make her food from leg meat (loin seems too rich for her), this came out to about $50/lbs. If she eats a batch of rabbit leg meat, liver, and Alnutrin, I'll look for a better supplier of just rabbit legs rather than buying the whole fryers. At least I have rabbit stock for months now, and a couple of friends will be getting some rabbit rack and loin.

I'll inquire at the local pet food store that also carries mice for snakes whether their frozen mice would be appropriate for my cat. Since I already have a grinder, I'd rather use my grinder than my food processor which doesn't produce the same results.

 

[Willow's Mom]

We have mice again! It probably would take four small-mediums to fill up Willow for breakfast now that she's closer to the size of an adult cat.

Even though I can't afford that, I'm awfully glad that I started her on the whole prey while she was young. They are excellent treats and supplements.

This was for nutritional and health reasons and I have no idea at all whether it will have a positive effect on her as a mouser otr a working cat. In my experience and opinion, that ship has already sailed and my pet will be a pet for the rest of her life.

A good barn cat needs to stay with their mother a lot longer than Willow did.

 

[Willowy]

I dunno. I have a little male (now 7 months old or so) who showed up at my place when he was a little scrap of a thing, maybe 3 or 4 weeks old and scrawny. I didn't give him whole prey when he was tiny. And the last time I fed the snakes, he snitched a rat and ran away with it, growling at any other cat who came near, and he ate the entire thing. So maybe it's instinctual for some cats.

If you can find a source for rats, a medium-sized rat should be enough for a day for most cats, and usually one medium rat is cheaper than several mice.

 

[Willow's Mom]

Willow is still a kitten so she eats a lot, but that sounds about right to me too. According to the packages on the prepared foods, kittens and puppies can eat "up to twice as much" food as adults, but my active adolescents can't maintain healthy weight on that. Willow is still getting all she wants and small, frequent meals and a year old was too young to start limiting my puppies' food.

 

[nwc]

During my Covid lockdown boredom, I did come to a peace with this. For those still curious, here's what I came up with.

RodentPro's guaranteed analysis is (protein, fat, energy) = (18.25%, 7.72%, 5.25kCal/g). So a 15 gram mouse would have a calorie count of (.1825 * 4kCal/g + .0772 * 10kCal/g) * 15 g = 22.53, based off of 4kCal/g of protein and 10kCal/g of fat. On the other hand, if we use the energy estimate of 5.25kCal/g, we would have (.1825 + .0772) * 15g * 5.25kCal/g = 20.44kCal.

I'm guessing remaining 8 - 10 calories are probably coming from whatever was in the animal. With this in consideration, the raw feeding guideline of 2-4% of bodyweight seems sound since most of the weight will be moisture.

20-30 kcals per mouse seems extremely low just based on what I know of the usual caloric content of meat. Pretty sure a snake couldn't get by on that kind of caloric intake.

From what I understand, snakes have extremely low metabolisms. So if you're feeding him every week, 30kCal is a decent amount.

 

[Willowy]

So a 15 gram mouse would have a calorie count of (.1825 * 4kCal/g + .0772 * 10kCal/g) * 15 g = 22.53, based off of 4kCal/g of protein and 10kCal/g of fat.

I was reading that as 5.25 kcal/gram of mouse, not all those complicated figures. Maybe contacting Rodent Pro to see how they meant it would be best.