Is it safe to give rats juice?

Question

I want to get a spare water bottle and fill it with a little mix of some juice occasionally while still leaving their water in. Im talking like 1/4 of a cup of grape and lemonade juices mixed together. NO ORANGE JUICE, im aware of this since i have males. Is this safe? Would they like this?

Answer 1

dont try it because who knows

it might come up with a horrible disese?

  

Answer 2

Give them normal water. Never mix anything with it (because if they don't like it, they'll stop drinking their water!)

Lemonade juice wouldn't be ideal.

Get real grapes, real apples, etc. They'll enjoy those much better than sugary juice versions.

Answer 3

Okay, first off, Law L is completely wrong. Giving rats juice does NOT rot their teeth or give them diabetes. It's a proven fact that NO living thing can just randomly "get" diabetes from eating excessive amounts of sugar! Secondly, rats DO drink a lot of water as they don't really have large amounts of saliva, their mouths are very dry and they do drink a lot of water. Of course they'd like it, but i wouldn't fill an entire water bottle full of it, even if it's diluted with water. If you wanna give them juice, just pour a LITTLE bit in a bowl for them to l**k, or dab some on your finger a few times and let them l**k it off. It's not exactly unhealthy for them, but it's not healthy either. Just be careful, as long as they have their typical rat food and occasional fruits/veggies, they'll be content about the stuff they taste.

bunnyjade is also wrong. It's an old myth that rats will die from soda, and they are capable of burping, tho it's not an everyday thing for them. Dumb ppl on this site, i swear..

Answer 4

Rats have a real sweet tooth.  I give mine fruit juice occasionally (Yeah same as you no orange juice, bad for the males) but if the lemonade you give them is fizzy, please don't.  Rats cannot burp so if they have anything carbonated they can blow up and die.  Just stick to unfizzy sweet stuff and don't give it all the time, i usually just give it to them in a little dish for a treat or dip my finger in some and let them l**k it off!

**EDIT**  To Thomas' Fiance - Please don't call people stupid when they know what they are talking about.  It's aknown biological fact that rats do not have the ability to burp or vomit.  That is why when your rat goes in for an operation you don't have to stop giving it food for a certain amount of time.  Species capable of vomiting, including humans cannot eat before an operation because of their ability to vomit.  Read any book on the biology of rats, which is a extensivley studied subject and you will see in every one of them that rats cannot vomit or burp.  If rats could vomit, rat bait for wild rodents wouldn't work.  My friend had a rat who had to get the air taken out of its stomach at the vets because it blew up after drinking fizzy drink.  You have no right to insult people who learn about their pets biology for the better of their pet and offer this information to help others.

Just so other people know a non vomiting species is called NONEMETIC and rats come under this classification.  You can check out a biology site which explains why rats cant vomit its:   www.ratbehaviour.org/vomit.htm

Answer 5

If you want to give your rats juice as an occasional treat, put a small amount on some bread (preferabley whole-grain) or just let 'em l**k it from your fingers.  Offering juice in a bottle might lead to diabetes, obesity or digestive upset b/c the little guys could drink way more than is good for them & the juice could go bad quickly.  Also, you don't want to take a chance that they'd enjoy drinking the juice so much that they'd ignore their water bottle.

Ideally any juice you give them would have no added sugar.  As you probably know, absolutely no carbonation.

Answer 6

Not really.

I mean, it may be too sweet for them, plus the fact they don't need it- rats don't drink a lot of /water/, let alone something that tastes unusual to them. It could rot their teeth, make them overweight, or cause diabetes.

Just give them normal water, and put pro-c (from pet shops) in it, if you're worried about their vitamin intake, and offer them fresh fruit and veg.  

Answer 7

I know that rodents like fruit, (such as grapes) but I wouldn't give a rat some juice, because juices usually have a ton of sugar in it, and that's not good for your rats, and also, if they do get addicted to the juice, I'm just wondering if your rat would get diareah (sorry for mispelling the spell checker isnt helping).

I advise you NOT to do it, just in case. Cool idea though.    

Answer 8

Animals can't usually tastes sweets so it's really no use

Answer 9

i give mine a smaller bottle of powerade zero. it's cheap, low calorie, and sugar free. plus it has electrolytes so it's great in summer as a dehydration aid. not that any of mine get to that point. they have their own fans and a/c. but they love powerade zero. and i think maybe a small amount of grape juice would be okay but i wouldn't do lemonade. if you go for it though, i wouldn't do it too often as it might be too sweet.

edit- @thomas' fiancee- rats don't burp. also have you ever heard of a degu? obesity and/or sugar make them diabetic EASILY. not to be rude, but since you are-don't say people are stupid for knowing more than you do. just because you choose to ignore the risks of soda doesn't make it healthy for the rats.

Answer 10

As long as there's no orange juice you really can't do much harm. They do like sweet things, but I'd only give them sugarless 100% fruit juice. If the juice wouldn't be healthy for a child, it's not good for a rat. Something like like sugarless juice boxes comes to mind.