It could be as simple as the fact that forage is a novel treat for captive animals so they gobble it up, whereas in wildies it's part of their normal diet and health routine. However, I think the answer goes a bit deeper. It's very common for non-migrating herbivores to have a specific strategy in regards to grazing, as obviously it does not pay them to eat up their entire food supply. At some point there were probably rabbit ancestors who lacked the 'self control' or the instinct to only eat part of the plant, and they died out. So natural selection plays a huge role in the process - the selection pressures of a limited food supply favours those who ration it... however unintentionally. Rabbits (and other grazing animals which exhibit similar selective grazing) likely have this partially instinctively, and partially learn it through grazing with their parents and conspecifics. The reason why captive rabbits appear to not abide by these grazing 'rules' could be varied: not spending enough time with mum to learn from her; not fearing the lack of food (due to small amounts of conspecifics, and also because humans constantly provide food); because captive rabbits are so far from wildies in nature; because captive animals have much less need to constantly scan for danger so they can get down to eating with ease; because the way we provide food (in bulk) cannot replicate a normal feeding pattern; or even because the environment that they're in is small enough not to have the option to selectively graze and so they have no instinct to. It is interesting to see that some groups of captive rabbits are less 'greedy' with their food... whereas others will gobble up everything as soon as they get it - is it because a litter mate at one point was perhaps under the weather or underweight and required more food, so the food supply went down and it brought out the desire to gobble everything down as soon as possible lest anyone else get it? And this has then had the same affect on conspecifics later in life? It's also interesting that some single rabbits are less 'greedy' - is it because of lack of competition? Or perhaps they eat at the same rate - is it down to boredom, or is it just a normal rate of eating?
Many questions :lol: