Can Rats Eat Spinach? [Or Is This Veggie Best Avoided?]

Can rats eat spinach? For humans, spinach is one of the healthiest foods out there. It’s often regarded as a superfood. But does the same apply to fancy rats? Owning a rat is a lot of fun, you can feed them all kinds of different fruits, vegetables, and even meat. However, before you feed them anything it’s always a good idea to do some preliminary research to find out if what you’re about to feed them is actually safe for them to eat.

Luckily, I’ve done all the research for you! Today I’m going to tell you everything you need to know about incorporating spinach into your rat’s diet. I’m going to go over whether you should make spinach a part of their diet or if other vegetables are a better option. Further, I’ll go over whether or not rats like it, how much of it you can feed them, and much more!

If you were about to feed some spinach to your pet rat, I’ve got some good news for you. Rats can eat spinach in small amounts around once a week. The vegetable is rich in many vitamins and minerals and is a great leafy green to include in their diet in moderation. The reason why they can not eat too much of it is that it’s quite high in oxalates. This can cause issues in their urinary tract and kidney stones if eaten in high amounts.

To learn everything you need to know about feeding this nutritious green to your rodent friend, keep reading!

can rats eat spinach

Spinach nutrients

photo of spinach

Spinach is a leafy green vegetable native to central and western Asia. Nowadays, most of the spinach is produced in China.

Most people know that spinach is absolutely packed with nutrients. However, most people do not know what exactly is in spinach that rats can benefit from.

Spinach is a leafy green vegetable that’s made up of 91% water. 100 grams of this vegetable also contains 2.9 grams of protein, 3.6 grams of carbs, 0.4 grams of sugar, 2.2 grams of fiber, and 0.4 grams of fat.

Since this vegetable is made up of such a large percentage of water and contains very little fat it’s very low in calories with only 23 calories per 100 grams. The fact that spinach is so low in fat is great for rats since they need only 5% fat in their diet. Also, the vegetable’s high fiber content will aid your rat’s digestion.

Furthermore, spinach is very rich in many micronutrients (vitamins and minerals). Let’s take a closer look and see how our rats can benefit from them.

Vitamins and minerals

Just like most vegetables, spinach contains a good amount of vitamin C. Unlike humans, rats are capable of synthesizing vitamin C on their own, but getting some extra from the food they eat is never bad. Vitamin C is an antioxidant that prevents DNA damage and helps your rat keep up its immune system.

Vitamin K1 is essential for proper blood clotting in your rats and spinach is very, very rich in this vitamin.

Spinach is also a great source of iron, vitamin B9, and calcium. Furthermore, it contains amounts of potassium,  magnesium, vitamin B6, and vitamin E. On top of that, it’s very rich in many antioxidants.

On the whole, this leafy green is incredibly rich in many essential vitamins and minerals.

Are spinach leaves good for rats?

So, now that we’ve taken a look at what exactly is in spinach, we can determine that spinach leaves do indeed have many good nutrients for rats. They’re low in calories and contain tons of essential vitamins and minerals. However, there’s a caveat. You should only feed this particular vegetable to your rat around once a week.

The reason for this is that it contains a relatively high amount of oxalic acids. In small amounts, these will not harm your rat, but if you feed too much spinach to your rats the oxalates in the vegetable can cause issues such as kidney stones.

If you have never fed this vegetable to your rat before, make sure that you introduce them to it very slowly and monitor them carefully to see if they develop diarrhea.

How much spinach can rats eat?

The first thing you should know about the rat’s diet is that around 10-20% of their diet needs to be made up of fruits and vegetables. This is determined by weight, so if you feed your rat 20 grams of food per day, then around 2 to 4 grams of that should be made up of fruits and vegetables.

However, you should not feed spinach to your rat every day. It should only be fed once a week because of the oxalates it contains and then in very small amounts. A teaspoon is more than enough.

Cooked, raw, or canned?

Rats can eat spinach both boiled and raw. However, if you’re going to feed this vegetable to your rat raw you should make sure that you wash it properly to get rid of any pesticides.

Cooked and raw spinach have different nutritional properties. Raw it contains more folate, vitamin C, niacin, riboflavin, and potassium while cooked it’s richer in vitamins A and E, protein, fiber, zinc, thiamin, calcium, and iron. Also, the antioxidants in spinach are more absorbable when it’s cooked.

Both variants are quite healthy, it’s up to you how you want to feed it to your rat. The one thing you have to keep in mind when you cook is that you should not use any oils because those contain too much fat.

Do rats enjoy eating spinach?

Generally speaking, most rats do enjoy eating spinach. However, it’s very possible that your rat doesn’t like it. If your rat doesn’t seem to be very interested in this leafy green, don’t worry, there are plenty of healthy alternatives that they can eat.

Alternative fruits and vegetables

I’ve already said that about 10-20% of the rat’s diet needs to be composed of fruits and vegetables. If your rat doesn’t want to eat spinach, take a look at some of the alternatives below for other fruits and vegetables that are good for them to consume.

For a complete list of foods that rats can eat, check out the rat nutrition guide. This guide will teach you everything you need to know about feeding your rat, including a list of what rats can not eat. It also gives you a good idea of what other veggies rats can eat. For example, did you know that rats can eat rice? All that and more is covered in the rat nutrition guide, I highly recommend you to check it out.


Final words: Can rats eat spinach?

A small amount of well-washed spinach once a week is no problem for your pet rat and can even be beneficial due to the high amount of nutrients this plant contains. However, this leafy green should not be fed much more often than that because this vegetable is very high in oxalates which can lead to issues.

ThePetFaq Team