[Le Necrophagist]

Is it okay for mice to eat raw meat? Is there any risk doing so? Are there any benefits to feeding small amounts of any raw meat to them?

 

[moustress]

No.

 

[SarahY]

Do you have any basis for that no, Moustress? I just wondered if there were reasons for your reply or if that was your opinion, since in the wild they would eat meat raw and they eat babies, which are also raw. I eat my own steak 'blue'.

My hounds are fed on raw meat and raw bones, grains and vegetables and they are certainly doing a lot better on that since we changed from commercial dog food. The change is unbelievable. I'm a BIG believer in natural food for animals. I don't feed my mice raw meat though because they have live mealworms and cockroaches to hunt, so they get enough meat-based protein.

Sarah xxx

 

[moustress]

Fancy mousies probably don't have much, if any, resistance to food borne microorganisms. I wouldn't eat raw meat unless I had raised and butchered it myself and was in control of how it was stored and I generally don't feed my mousies anything that I wouldn't consider safe for myself. I know meeces are omnivores in the wild, but their lives are pretty short due to the conditions they live under. Fancy meeces generally live a lot longer if they get the specialized care that can optimize health, and to my mind that includes a safe food supply.

 

[Kallan]

I would tend to agree with moustress on this one - the more you handle raw meat, the more likely you (and your mice) are to get some variant of food poisoning.

 

[SarahY]

That's fair enough then, I just felt that an explanation was desirable in this case; no-one learns anything from a one word answer

Sarah xxx

 

[Le Necrophagist]

Say I raised my own chickens and knew they are healthy... Perhaps keeping them frozen for a period of time to kill parasites.

 

[Kallan]

Poultry are known carriers of Salmonella - i.e. they harbour the bacteria in their intestines but don't show any symptoms of it. Ditto E. coli and Campylobacter. It used to be thought that if these bacteria were found on the meat of the bird after processing, it was due to dirt contamination of the birds when going through the slaughterhouse. Now it's known that if the bacteria are present in the intestines, they can get absorbed into the bloodstream and take up residence in the muscles (i.e. meat!). The same is true for all meat, which is why we have to cook meat thoroughly.

The bacteria are resistant little bu**ers, and even freezing at temperatures as low as -20 C for a period of weeks doesn't seem to kill them.

</end vet public health lesson> :lol:

I personally wouldn't try it, though I'm sure many people have and have had no problem? I guess it only takes one immunocompromised mouse and the bacteria go into overdrive, then all the rest get it.

 

[moustress]

Even fruits and veggies have things on them that need to be cleansed; I saw a demonstration where two cantaloupes were cut in half, one unwashed, the other washed with hot water and soap. The knife picked up germs from the outside of the fruit and carried it into the flesh of both cantaloupes. The unwashed one had wide swathes of contamination and the washed one had just a little contamination.

All critters have some sort of microbiota in them or on them; it's an important part of survival for both the host and the germ. Like Kallan said, it's a matter of acquired immunity on the part of the host, and one cannot assume that other critters have that immunity.

Chickens just happen to be one of the critters most likely to cause food borne illness.

 

[Kallan]

Even fruits and veggies have things on them that need to be cleansed

Or in the case where a certain brand pre-washed their salad using water from a stream that had been contaminated by a sewage outlet... cue several hundred cases of bacterial gastroenteritis!!!

 

[Cait]

The BARF diet for dogs is different to trying to feed rodents though - dogs eat what you give them then you take the bowls away and wash them up. With rodents you have to leave food in the cage at all times and leaving raw meat out for any length of time will let bacteria multiply. I'd have to say I think it's a bad idea for mice.

 

[Le Necrophagist]

This is all interesting thanks for all of the replies... I guess I'll stick to cooked meat then. It probably tastes better to the mice anyway.