How my garden has changed..........

I hate weeds but now I know Alfie can eat "Sow Thistle", "Dandelion" greens and what in Australia we call "Sticky Weed" I now have a section in my back yard where I let the evil weeds go wild. I grow Raspberries and we have found the leaves are his absolute favorite, he'd kill for them.

His core diet is hay, green oaten hay (really good quality) with a small slice of apple in morning and a small piece of carrot twice a week. His grains are a mixture of grains and dried fruit (which he loves) We can get what you call Timothy hay here but (wait for it) it is 25 British pounds for 2kg.

My question is this, I want him to have the best food but I am terrified of giving him something that will hurt him. How do you all deal with this. I have learned from this forum that diet can be life or death for a bun and If I ever did anything to hurt him I'd die.

Rod

I just try them with things & see how they go. (check online, on here, in books if its meant to be poisonous)

Daphne is usually my first test subject as she's very fussy, Phoebe then gets the second test because she'll eat anything at all. So far, they've not had any upset tums from anything I've given. They go mad for willow, hawthorn & maple. Everything else is a bit of a "well, if there's nothing else I guess I'll eat this..."

My rabbits have farm hay, Muesli (Wagg) and Chudleys, about 3/4 eggcup full, Spring Greens about every other day and Readigrass as a treat. I started using Muesli 18 years ago and don't see any reason to change as they are all healthy and I have some bunnies in their 8-9th year. What do you mean by grains?

tonibun said:

My rabbits have farm hay, Muesli (Wagg) and Chudleys, about 3/4 eggcup full, Spring Greens about every other day and Readigrass as a treat. I started using Muesli 18 years ago and don't see any reason to change as they are all healthy and I have some bunnies in their 8-9th year. What do you mean by grains?

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We can get a nice blend of pellets, grains and dried fruit here for Rabbits. He loves it and eats it in the evening. I've got Mallow in the back yard which he's not keen on.

Maddy and Alfie Nibbles said:

We can get a nice blend of pellets, grains and dried fruit here for Rabbits. He loves it and eats it in the evening. I've got Mallow in the back yard which he's not keen on.

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Is it a mixture of pellets, grains and dried fruit? Do you know what the grains are? I'm asking because the dried fruit will be quite high calorie and possibly also the grains. The aim really is to get Alfie to eat about 85-90% hay. He'll only do that if the rest of his diet isn't filling him up too much. I would try to get just pellets by themselves and feed just a very small amount each day.

I make up the 10-15% of our rabbits' diet with grass, forage, tree leaves and vegetables (small pieces of carrot very occasionally). They have bark to nibble on. They have never had any fruit, because of its sugar content.

Nothing I have given to my rabbits has upset their stomachs. I would just give him the weeds that you can easily recognise. Just avoid the ones he doesn't like. Mine don't like Mallow either

Mine love shrub mallow: they wait for the OH to thread a bit through the bars of their lawn pen Learning what's what in the garden is a bit of trial and error with the internet and books etc.: we found the face-to-face courses really useful so if you can get on to anything like that, or a garden expert to come round, that could help too.

Thanks for the advice thus far. I think we may have been spoiling him a bit. He gets a small piece of apple every morning and he always has grain in his bowl.

This is one of the reasons I really ticked of with the breeder we got him from. No diet sheet, no care sheet and no transition food. I feel lucky we did not kill him as we knew little about rabbits when we got him. This breeder is a disgrace.

I like to give him fresh grass twice a day, this OK?

Rod

Robin won't touch carrots at all he isn't interested but he loves carrot tops , parsley, tarragon and lavender are his favourites.

He tries to pick out all the dried dandelions out of his hay