Hay diet

Hiya
If you feed only hay and small amount of veg and water should u give a supplement? This is what Nala is on at present.. i hope to gradually introduce pellets but so far when she's had a few she has had the runs so may not be possible. But on only hay/grass and some veggies and water im guessing she will miss out on vitamins/minerals. What do you give them and where do u get it from?
Meant to ask the vet about it yesterday but totally slipped my mind.

chris, the veg shold give her the vitamins!! but you can buy those mineral licks from the pet shops!!! how do you know it is the pellets causing the runns and not the veg?

Eve x

My bunny just eats pellets and water. But he also has a mineral lick in his cage. I give him vegetables sometimes but he gets diareha if I give them to him too often. And my mom says the hay from the pet store is too expensive. So sometimes I take some from the barn every weekend. But thats all. And he's healthy. The pellets shouldn't cause the diareha. If anything the vegetables would.

I was under the impression that rabbits need the hay to help their teeth. As rabbits teeth are always growing they need to grind them down on hay.


Betty

Yes, hay and other fibrous forage is the single most important constituent of the domestic rabbits diet other than water.

yes bunnies need hay to use teeth back,
it's also good for transit, hay is the base of their food even if it's not anough!!

Most definitely. Hay is the number one most important thing to feed your rabbit! Swooky, I cannot urge you enough to feed your bunny hay each and every day, unlimited amounts!!!!!!!!!!

Chris, I'm not sure, really. In the wild they wouldn't be eating pellets, but then again, our buns are domesticated, so... :?:

Swooky please give your rabbit plenty of hay, pellets should be restricted because it has been found that eating pellets as the bulk of the diet can cause teeth problems! :shock: This web site has a great article! :wink:



http://www.hop-and-hutch.co.uk/x880.html

Well ive given her a cabbage leaf, small piece of carrot and some coriander every evening since she's been here and her poops have been fab. But when she nicked some of simba's pellets her poops went all squidgy and tiny for a day.. they are now back to big size again. She has a mineral lick so thats ok... i was just wondering seeing as pellets have so much stuff in it but i forgot about her lick thing.
Thanks.. hopefully if i give her a few pellets each night and up it by a few every few days she might tolerate them ok eventually.

The bulk of a Rabbit’s diet should be Hay and/or Grass. They need this to function correctly. It aids digestion; helps keep teeth in order and many other things.

I feed Vegetables/Greens/hand picked weeds/grasses etc every day and I also feed a small amount of fruit as a treat.

They get a small amount of pellets each.

Unless you have a wide selection of different types of plant/vegetation and lots of time to hand pick plants, I would say it would be necessary to feed a small amount of pellets to make sure your Rabbit is getting the correct vitamin/minerals etc.

Rabbit's in the wild have a huge variety of thing to eat. Domesticated Rabbits can only eat what we put n front of them.

Louise