By the way Thumps, it just occured to me, do you feed pellets or is all the wild food enough?
I don't know whether I'm allowed on this thread.
Nessar, you'd laugh at what I'm seeing happening for the 2nd time, but yes I offer pellets, & actually free feed them in moderation because we know Benjie is still growing but we have no idea what his final size will be. He
looks very Beveran which would be an 8-10 pounder bunny but he could be crossed with something much smaller.
7 years ago when I 1st put Thumper out to grass, he stopped eating his pellets in preference to grass although he was still growing. As his gut slowly deteriorated with absorption issues he'd top up with pellets, & changed his selection of forage plants.
As I increase Benjie's fresh forage foods gradually, he's "gone off" his pellets, & only eats a couple of eggcupfuls a day most days now. I think house rabbits need the extra vit D3 for good bone growth to make up for the lack of UV light coming through windows. I'm finding that Benjie is like Thumper, but eats a much wider selection, which varies slightly from day to day. Some plants have to be treats because there aren't many available!
It's all very open to discussion, but my own experience is that given selection of
wild plants only most rabbits will eat what they
need. This doen't apply to the high sugar/protein content of human veg selectively bred over the centuries for these characteristics, (as well as low fiber). The wild precursors of some human veg exist out in the wild, but are quite uncommon because they are eaten avidly by herbivours, before they can seed.
Herbviours are "hard wired" to select them. That very rare boost to their nutrition could make the difference between survival over winter, or the health of a litter of young. I've a nasty suspicion that manufacturers add mollasses to the pellets, to capitalise on this instinctive selection of high sugar foods. I can only say that my boys seem able to overide it when offered
fresh food, but not dry. No idea why.
I'm surprised that hawthorn & bramble seem to be a large part of wildie diet when they can get it. The big difference is the nature of the fiber - lignin rather than cellulose. Plantains supply a further type of "non digestable" mucilage. The nutrient content is negligable in tree leaves but these non digestables seem to improve gut throughput (transit time) so they are less stasis prone, & can eat more of their natural low nutrient foods - hay, grass, etc. making them less susceptable to dysbiosis.
Yes, they
can live without pellets, particularly if they spend over an hour a day outside.
There weren't pellets when I was a child, or vet care for rabbits, & our buns lived to ripe old ages of up to 13 years! They do need a good mix of good quality hays, with plenty of grass types, & a good mix of forage foods -about 3-4 times as much as human veg. Neither were all the different breeds available to the ordinary people. Our pets mainly came from the fur & meat farms.
I think that it isn't feasable for the majority of people to feed a totally foraged diet, unless we live very close to the country. also the use of herbicides & artificial fertilizers has decimated the wild plants since I was a child.
TBH my heart is heavy that I now have another bunny who cannot eat hay, although he loves it. Whatever I do to it, the small amount of dust in it triggers his snuffles, despite continuous ABx. I couldn't control the snuffles until I got all the hay out of the house! It's hard work & very time consuming to find enough forage, with good variety for both their daily needs & to dry enough to over winter. I'm going to try to grow some herbs as a supplement this year. Dry plants & tree leaves seem to be much less dusty than hay.
I still can't believe that Thumper survived 6+ years with TB of his gut, on forage + pellets, maintaining weight & coat condition to the end, to the extent that I had a bust up with a new experienced exotics vet in an exotics center who refused to believe there was anything wrong with him only 6 months before he died!!!
Benjie is growing well despite generalised pastuerella with abscessation, now in remission.
I'd say if your bun is healthy on the standard diet, why change? or just add in a small amount of forage - a handful daily. If you have a sick bunny AND much to the point it's
practicable it's likely that wild forage improves the outlook of some conditions, especially stasis.
I suppose it's up to us to see what it does for pastuerellosis.
In the early days Pretty Lupin said, "The caecum is the heart of bunny health". I didn't "get it", but as the months & years elapsed both of us were astounded by the truth of that statement.
I suspect what what foraged foods do, is to maintain the health of the caecal microorganisms & general gut contractility to an optimum level.
OMG is that the longest post on record? Hope it answers your question.
