Yeah, the rats passed a herd of cows, too (not really an animal you'll find without humans, but eh), but I don't think anyone except the rats ever thought of them as a food source, either meat or dairy.

I spotted this as a kid, but for once, this did not bother my little mouthbreathin' mind; I recognized that Redwall was the first book and he was fine-tuning the world as he wrote, so I glossed them over by unspoken author/reader agreement.