I've heard it said (er, seen it posted) that if you leave out the Bash Strenth completely, your Animal may not show up in the game. (Just set it at 0 if you don't want it to "have" any Bash Strength. )
As for changing the food type, the information for that (and LOTS of other things) can be found in the ZA Design Library thread.
Here is the link for "food change" instructions...
http://zoo.ogresnet.com/articles/link.php?id=9(These are the instruction for editing "by hand", which is REALLY the easier/quicker way to handle many Animal Stat tweaks.)
-ZW