The 'Perfect' Diet ??

Ok, so obviously there probably isn't any one absolute overall winner . However, please post your ideas of a fantastic daily diet for buns with who have no current health problems .

Currently I feel my buns diet is too pellet heavy, and although they have a limitless supply of hay and some fresh veggies & grass in the evenings I feel it really could be improved .

Xx

I think natural is really the way we are heading for 'perfect'. So reducing pellets, increasing the variety of fresh (or dried) plants, but particularly leafy wild plants rather than cultivated vegetables. If you look at the forage threads there are lots of ideas on specific plants you can pick.

Neo gets maybe 15 bits of Science selective pellets in the morning with unlimited hay during the day.

In the evenings he gets loads of grass, bramble, dandelion leaves and rose leaves/petals.

During the evenings he will get a small amount of Excel pellets in his treat ball which makes him exercise for his food.

We also include small bits of cucumber, carrot, pepper etc every now and again.

I'm liking the natural forage over the pellets but it's not always readily available and unfortunately I wouldn't feel confident going foraging around me as a lot is dog-walking territory and there's always lots of wee and poo

I hhave around 80 rabbits so I can't give them everything I might do if I had less so mine get a small portion of muesli, lots of hay and veg mainly Spring Greens, twice or 3 times a week. I have a 10 yr old with no obvious health issue, a 9 yr old with cataracts the vet said, an 8 y old who is ok and many 6/7 yr olds. I have had them all since being a baby except the 10 yr olf who lived somewhere else for a year. We never have (hate saying never) stasis, I don't have a snuffles bunny but used to have one, only had 1 case of mites, never had fleas or ear mites. I've had a few dental bunnies caused possibly by a bad diet in their previous home.

I used to go and forage when I had less rabbits but don't have the time now

Considering they don't have a very varied diet they seem to do very well. I do give baby/young rabbits more variety so they get all the nutrients they need for growth.

I am not saying everyone should feed their bunnies this way but it is interesting to know if you have recurrent stasis episodes etc. as this might be helpful.

The wild diet! my dream is to have a massive field like meadow garden where I could grow bunny safe plants and weeds and let the bunnies roam and free range all day.

Lots of this ...




A variety of this ...




An unlimited supply of this ...




And just a few of these ...

Mine gets 1/4 of an egg cup of pellets in the morning, more hay than he can ever possibly eat (topped up morning and evening), 1/4 eggcup at 5-6pm and a handful of veg i.e. Spring greens and herbs every night

Mine seems to do really well on this - he's stayed the same weight for nearly a year and is in excellent health (touch wood!)
I am thinking about phasing pellets out completely, I was chatting to my vet and he's of the opinion buns don't need pellets at all, but I feel too mean to get rid completely :lol:

Thanks for the wonderful ideas guys, will use some of these ! :thumb::thumb:

I'm not sure there is a perfect answer. I have 12 bunnies and all have slightly different diets as they have different needs. The main similarity is that they all have lots and lots of hay.

I would love to feed a more foragy type of diet and less shop bought veggies but I don't trust myself.

I weigh all my buns weekly anyway as its a helpful guideline in regards to health, but its especially useful if I get a new bun as it helps me tailor the diet so that it suits them.

I enjoy feeding mine as naturally as possible on forage or home grown rabbit safe veg, herbs and flowers as well as adlib hay and grass and a few pellets. I'm aiming to wean them off of shop brought veg and fruit as treats as my own stuff grows and I become more confident at foraging.
They do get the odd chew toy such as a hay tunnel.

Tamsin said:

I think natural is really the way we are heading for 'perfect'. So reducing pellets, increasing the variety of fresh (or dried) plants, but particularly leafy wild plants rather than cultivated vegetables. If you look at the forage threads there are lots of ideas on specific plants you can pick.

Click to expand...

I totally agree with this! As well as my own buns, all the recent fosters I've had have been put onto a forage-based diet with a few pellets and unlimited hay as normal. They have all absolutely thrived and this includes bunnies who have been on a terrible and/or unknown diet beforehand, and baby bunnies. Wild forage (as opposed to cultivated plants) seem to be so incredibly gentle on bunny guts and stimulate a good appetite, I think it's far better than vegetables because it hasn't been engineered for superior nutrition/softness. From a bunny tummy point of view, tough fibre and poor nutritional value from each leaf is better, and forage provides that! So many plants also have medicinal properties and I do find that bunnies have their own favourites or self-select depending on what they seem to 'need'. Just before she died, my Mavis started really tucking into hawthorn (good for heart and blood pressure) with gusto - which I was giving for her partner Dudley. I didn't really register it at the time, but she died soon after of heart failure, so I think her body 'knew' that it had medicinal properties and was helping her. These days I pay a lot more attention to which bits of forage the bunnies are picking out of the mix, and looking for sudden changes or patterns. I'm definitely sold on the forage approach...you may have guessed :lol:

I think Ludo has the perfect diet (that doesn't sound modest really does it!)

He has 12 SS pellets a day and then everything else is hay, grass and fresh wild forage which a friend picks for us 2-3 times a week.

Tamsin said:

I think natural is really the way we are heading for 'perfect'. So reducing pellets, increasing the variety of fresh (or dried) plants, but particularly leafy wild plants rather than cultivated vegetables. If you look at the forage threads there are lots of ideas on specific plants you can pick.

Click to expand...

I agree. For a perfect diet I would like to give them an entire (secure) large garden to eat from, divided into sections so you could allow weeds/bunny plants to grow happily for a while before letting the bunnies loose on them. I'd scatter seed mixes of clover, plantain, dandelion, sow thistle, sticky weed etc on the unused areas so they grow lots of bunny-friendly weeds. And ideally I'd have a willow tree and an apple tree (fenced off from naughty nibblers!) that they could have the leaves and branches from and bramble and hawthorne bushes at the edges of the garden. And a vegetable patch growing herbs and greens for them to nom on

Then just mountains of fresh British baled hay, no pellets - assuming the bunnies are healthy of course! That's a summer diet though, you'd have to modify for the winter, with pellets and dried/bought forage.

I'm not actually very green-fingered, so it's not completely achievable, but I reckon I could achieve most of it, given the right house/garden.