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Rabbit mainly eats grass?!

T

Thumper123

Young Bun
Hi all, we rehomed a 5 year old female french lop last year. She has the free run of the garden (safely) during the day and goes into a covered run at night. She is fed pellets and fresh hay daily but hardly eats any of it. She does eat the pellets a bit but not a great deal, and no matter where i put it she just flattens the hay and sits on it rather than eat it!

Obviously there's not a great deal I can do to force her, but is it ok that she's mainly just eating grass as she's out all day? She certainly seems happy and healthy. Edited to add that she hardly drinks any water either!
 
Grass in my opinion is perfectly good for teeth wear & digestion - its what wildies eat & their diet is to be aspired too. The high water content of grass probably means she needs little water. If her poo & weight are fine I'd personally not worry. How many pellets do you feed?
 
I give her 2 eggcups a day of pellets, but I always throw some away and she is a big girl. I should add actually that she does eat her vegetables...it's mainly just the pellets and hay that get ignored. :)
 
If mine get a lot of grass (hand picked during the summer as they are in a shed/run combo with no grass growing) they ignore their hay. The love veg and their rabbit royale muesli and always prefer grass to hay, so she sounds perfectly normal to me.
 
Mine eat hardly any hay when they've been on grass for just a couple of hours, but if they don't go out one day they go straight back to eating loads. They're still mental for pellets and anything that's not hay though.
 
tonibun said:
Is her weight good? I would love to see a photo of a rabbit which eats mainly grass.
Click to expand...

Just took a photo of her (eating grass funnily enough!) but can't work out how to get the photo on here! I'm no expert but I think she's a good weight...she's a big girl but she's a french lop...certainly isn't underweight.
 
Thanks everyone...sounds like she's normal then. With the few milder days we've been getting she's just out all day long so I'd noticed more that she wasn't eating much. Thanks for the help. :)
 
My bun will wolf grass down, but he's not particularly fond of hay! I've tried most types of hay, paid a fortune for it, but he still only picks at bits of it, if he absolutely has to! He would eat grass all day if he could, but I restrict his access, as he gets an upset stomach if he's allowed too much.
 
One of my previous pair, Flymo, would choose grass over hay too. He never had any weight or dental issues, or anything like that.
 
Sounds like a great diet!

Very few pellets, access 24/7 to hay, a few veggies and loads of fresh grass. Couldn't be better :D

You could add in some wild picked forage for variety if you have any nearby?
 
MightyMax said:
Sounds like a great diet!

Very few pellets, access 24/7 to hay, a few veggies and loads of fresh grass. Couldn't be better :D

You could add in some wild picked forage for variety if you have any nearby?
Click to expand...

We have, and often give her bits. Thanks for the reassurance...wasn't sure how I could stop her anyway, short of not letting her out as much but she'd hate that! She seems happy, so I leave her to it! :)
 
Sounds great, grass can completely replace hay in pet rabbits diets and it's more natural for grazing/water content. The only issue is if you don't have enough grass to last through winter when it's slower growing. I feed grass instead of hay over summer and then add hay back in once it's muddy and slow growing.

Lawns can be a little lower on the variety of plants species than you'd get in a field, so it's good to still supplement it with a range of plants - either forage or veggies, or feed pellets which have the vitamins etc. mixed in. It sounds like you are doing that anyway.
 
Thumper123 said:
We have, and often give her bits. Thanks for the reassurance...wasn't sure how I could stop her anyway, short of not letting her out as much but she'd hate that! She seems happy, so I leave her to it! :)
Click to expand...


A specialist I visit suggests grass and only grass as a rabbit's diet :D

... so it must be good to have lots of it :thumb:
 
I feed a large handful each day through the winter and more in summer. I'm very lucky as I have a large garden and also live in a rural area and have horses so have plenty of areas to forage. I believe in offering rabbits as natural a diet as possible so feed lots of forage and grass as well as several types of hay and dried herbs/forage through winter
 
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