Do rabbits need veggies?

Hi there - wow I'm really surprised! I thought rabbits had to have 2 cups of veg a day! I just adopted 2 netherland dwarf x lionhead rabbits and have been feeding them:

• 2 cups of veg each (1 morning, 1 night) - lettuce, kale, watercress, basil, parsley
• 1/8 cup of pellets each
• unlimited Timothy hay

Does that sound like too much?

jennyes2011 said:

Hi there - wow I'm really surprised! I thought rabbits had to have 2 cups of veg a day! I just adopted 2 netherland dwarf x lionhead rabbits and have been feeding them:

• 2 cups of veg each (1 morning, 1 night) - lettuce, kale, watercress, basil, parsley
• 1/8 cup of pellets each
• unlimited Timothy hay

Does that sound like too much?

Click to expand...

Hi the recommended amount of pellets is an egg cup full per day,the manufacturer always says more so u buy more,pellets contain calcium and too much calcium for rabbits is bad,the main part of a rabbits diet is hay or grass,maybe reduce the pellets slowly so bunny doesn't notice too much and it will encourage more hay eating,timothy hay is excellent and a good source of fibre,they need lots of fibre to keep their gut moving,greens etc is recommended 2-3 times per week otherwise bunny will munch all the greens and less hay,there are loads of different hays available so you could mix them up to keep bunny interested,there is a company called the hay experts online that do a great selection and is reasonably priced,I will be ordering from them soon,they also do a produc called. Readigrass which is pure dried grass,which I'm going to order and it is high in fibre,they do it cheeper than pets at home,so if you wanted to you could supplement their diet with that,they also do dried forage products a good mixture which is handy to have if fresh supplies run out near you,I give this to my buns in a dish on the days that they don't have fresh veggies etc and they have taken to it quite well,hope this helps, stay away from too much gassy veg like cabbage,broccoli and especially spring greens as this can cause GI stasis in buns,which happened to one of mine,he was very ill,only feed broccoli and cabbage in very small amounts to stay on the safe side,carrots should also be fed in small amounts as a treat only as they are high in sugar,carrot tops are better if you can get them. Good luck with it all x

Thanks for the info. I have a lot to learn still! They are certainly eating a lot of hay - think I might just cut right down on the veg and add more varieties of hay.
Thanks,
Jenny

jennyes2011 said:

Thanks for the info. I have a lot to learn still! They are certainly eating a lot of hay - think I might just cut right down on the veg and add more varieties of hay.
Thanks,
Jenny

Click to expand...

You are very welcome,tbh one thing I have found with having bunnies is that I am constantly learning,I don't think it ever stops lol it just makes me mad that pet shops sell rabbits to people thinking they are easy to keep ie:shut up in a cage all day that's far too small,sell peeps a bag of food and away they go,bunnies are classed as exotics,they need more care than the average cat or dog, I am still learning myself and as I said I think the learning is continuous,I learnt the hard way about diet ,bonding is my next challenge as it's already failed but we all get there in the end

X

Mine get a bowl of veg every morning - small amount of kale, tiny bit of brocoli, and a grape. We rescued them from rSPCA and they used to get veg there, so we carried it on, and they love it! (You should see how excited them get when i knock the bowls together in the morning).

They also get dried herbs in the evening, and they have their own patch of timothy grass, as well as our lawn and bamboo bush! :lol:

They get loads of hay (they eat a pile double the size of them twice a day) and 20grams of pellets each in the evening.

I always think its more of a balance thing than need.... balanced out with their hay intake, they have barely any veg.... too much veg can be bad for them, but if its balanced its great

Doughnut has more forage foods such as dandelions, rose leaves, bramble leaves which are good for her digestion, rose petals etc. I also give her dill every so often as that's good for gas. She has 1 egg cup of SS pellets, grass when I'm around and unlimited to hay.

She is so healthy now, I think the more natural you can get the diet the better. She suffered from gas once so no veg for her!