Feeding weights

Omi said:

It's certainly true that wild bunnies have choice in what they eat. However, if you watch a field of wildies, they predominantly eat grass, grass and more grass. So I'm not sure that their diet is that balanced to be honest. They obviously do get Vit D.

I have always provided a very, small amount of pellets to all my rabbits, slightly more in the winter as they live outside. However, I have always been careful not to overfeed because of the calcium issue. https://www.harcourt-brown.co.uk/articles/free-food-for-rabbits/calcium-and-rabbit-food

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Don't they eat the (small) plants that grow among the grass, too? That's what I thought, that they mostly eat grass, but a lot of other things as well? (Edit: Oh, I meant balanced nutritionally, not balanced as in that they eat an equal amount of various things). And they must get their vitamin D from the sun, I'm guessing?

The article is very interesting. It links to this page: https://www.harcourt-brown.co.uk/ar...t-of-a-food-item-that-contains-rda-of-calcium which says a 2.5kg bunny (the weight of the bunny is mentioned on the page you linked to) would need to eat 63g of pellets that have 0.9% calcium to meet their recommended daily allowance. That's the amount of Science Selective pellets that's recommended on the bag (25g/kg bunny), and Science Selective pellets only have 0.6% calcium, so it sounds like if you keep to the amount the manufacturer recommends, a bunny wouldn't get too much calcium? Have I understood that right? Although that page also says that a bunny would need to eat 113g of hay to meet their recommended daily allowance, so if the bunny would eat all that hay, and then pellets on top of that would be too much calcium... That's really interesting.

a reader of books said:

Don't they eat the (small) plants that grow among the grass, too? That's what I thought, that they mostly eat grass, but a lot of other things as well? (Edit: Oh, I meant balanced nutritionally, not balanced as in that they eat an equal amount of various things). And they must get their vitamin D from the sun, I'm guessing?

The article is very interesting. It links to this page: https://www.harcourt-brown.co.uk/ar...t-of-a-food-item-that-contains-rda-of-calcium which says a 2.5kg bunny (the weight of the bunny is mentioned on the page you linked to) would need to eat 63g of pellets that have 0.9% calcium to meet their recommended daily allowance. That's the amount of Science Selective pellets that's recommended on the bag (25g/kg bunny), and Science Selective pellets only have 0.6% calcium, so it sounds like if you keep to the amount the manufacturer recommends, a bunny wouldn't get too much calcium? Have I understood that right? Although that page also says that a bunny would need to eat 113g of hay to meet their recommended daily allowance, so if the bunny would eat all that hay, and then pellets on top of that would be too much calcium... That's really interesting.

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Yes, that's right. However, it's what the rabbit eats in addition to that quantity of pellets, that could result in an excess of calcium. It's all a difficult balance really, but the way I look at it is that first and foremost I want my rabbits to eat hay/grass and forage (including tree leaves). Not necessarily for dental health, as I try to have rabbits which are not prone to dental disease due to their head shape, but primarily for digestive health and to prevent obesity. Achieving that means less pellets, as the rabbit can only consume a certain amount per day. It also has the benefit that less pellets means less calcium to be added to whatever else they have had. And my rabbits have absolutely no processed treats, so don't have any possible additional calcium that way.

I did understand that you meant balanced nutritionally From observation I think wildies will feed on a patch of grass and if that grass has small plants mixed in, they will eat those too. I'm not absolutely sure that eating the plants is a conscious choice though. I would guess that maybe a wildie consumes less protein from its diet than a pet rabbit. Yes Vit D from sunshine.

Just to say also that I think the age of pet rabbits is relevant when determining how many pellets to feed. From experience I have found that elderly rabbits tend to lose weight much more easily without pellet support. For young adult rabbits though, I think I would be concerned if the rabbit needed a large quantity of pellets to maintain weight.

Omi said:

Yes, that's right. However, it's what the rabbit eats in addition to that quantity of pellets, that could result in an excess of calcium. It's all a difficult balance really, but the way I look at it is that first and foremost I want my rabbits to eat hay/grass and forage (including tree leaves). Not necessarily for dental health, as I try to have rabbits which are not prone to dental disease due to their head shape, but primarily for digestive health and to prevent obesity. Achieving that means less pellets, as the rabbit can only consume a certain amount per day. It also has the benefit that less pellets means less calcium to be added to whatever else they have had. And my rabbits have absolutely no processed treats, so don't have any possible additional calcium that way.

I did understand that you meant balanced nutritionally From observation I think wildies will feed on a patch of grass and if that grass has small plants mixed in, they will eat those too. I'm not absolutely sure that eating the plants is a conscious choice though. I would guess that maybe a wildie consumes less protein from its diet than a pet rabbit. Yes Vit D from sunshine.

Just to say also that I think the age of pet rabbits is relevant when determining how many pellets to feed. From experience I have found that elderly rabbits tend to lose weight much more easily without pellet support. For young adult rabbits though, I think I would be concerned if the rabbit needed a large quantity of pellets to maintain weight.

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Oh, I see... That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for explaining.

Ah, so you think it might be more of a "This plant is growing where all my nice grass is, so I might as well eat it, too" thing... So, all this foraging that bunny people do, wild bunnies don't actually eat all of that? They don't eat, for example, bramble leaves and stuff? Since they would have to consciously go find those; they don't grow in the middle of fields of grass as far as I know.

Yes, that makes a lot of sense as well.

a reader of books said:

Oh, I see... That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for explaining.

Ah, so you think it might be more of a "This plant is growing where all my nice grass is, so I might as well eat it, too" thing... So, all this foraging that bunny people do, wild bunnies don't actually eat all of that? They don't eat, for example, bramble leaves and stuff? Since they would have to consciously go find those; they don't grow in the middle of fields of grass as far as I know.

Yes, that makes a lot of sense as well.

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I don't think it's as black and white as that and I also think it probably depends a lot on availabilty. So, if a rabbit warren is next to an enormous mound of Blackberry, then the rabbits will certainly feed on it. So none of it is, in my view, clear cut and different individual wildies will have different diets. I'm not sure that they deliberately search out plants though. Wildies which have been in the garden here primarily eat grass, although wild plants are not too far away.

Omi said:

I don't think it's as black and white as that and I also think it probably depends a lot on availabilty. So, if a rabbit warren is next to an enormous mound of Blackberry, then the rabbits will certainly feed on it. So none of it is, in my view, clear cut and different individual wildies will have different diets. I'm not sure that they deliberately search out plants though. Wildies which have been in the garden here primarily eat grass, although wild plants are not too far away.

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Ah, I see... Thank you for your replies, Omi. I've learned some new stuff.

a reader of books said:

Oh, I see... That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for explaining.

Ah, so you think it might be more of a "This plant is growing where all my nice grass is, so I might as well eat it, too" thing... So, all this foraging that bunny people do, wild bunnies don't actually eat all of that? They don't eat, for example, bramble leaves and stuff? Since they would have to consciously go find those; they don't grow in the middle of fields of grass as far as I know.

Yes, that makes a lot of sense as well.

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The wildies near my ponies certainly eat some of the stuff I forage - cow parsley, sticky weed, brambles - because you can clearly see their foraging ground, and outside it this stuff is thriving, inside nearer their holes it is still almost non-existent because the wildies get there first! Much of the plantage is clearly eaten down to the ground like it is on my lawn at home.

As an addition to the pellet conversation, we did try Odin with pellets briefly when we couldn't get weight on him, but it actually had the opposite effect and he lost more. We couldn't maintain his weight or his gut health on pellets. I think he just ate pellets over anything else and it wasn't enough, when we took them out he started eating more grass, hay and dried forage again and the weight went up.
The idea of perfect nutrients in pellets is a bit false too - the RDA is a guide, but this will be unique to each individual. So even feeding the exact amount of pellets to get the nutrients for an individual rabbit could still result in deficencies if they have difference requirements for some reason. And require nutrients varies day to day too, depending on weather, exercise, health amongst other things. And then you don't know the exact content of nutrients in your hay, grass, any forage you use for enrichment, treats, hiding medicines. Unless you only feed pellets in exactly the right amounts and nothing else, your balances are going to be unbalanced - something as simple as when and where the hay was cut for example will make a huge difference to it's content.
The thing that bugs me about pellets is that the ingredient list for most - even the good ones - contains things you are advised not to feed rabbits. It doesn't make sense to me that it isn't ok to feed them in their natural form, but mushing them up and turning into pellets is ok.
Aside from that - for me - is the huge importance of enrichment. Feeding different types of food, in a variety of ways, is essential as far as I am concerned when you keep any animals who can't fulfil their normal lifestyle. One of the ways I try to compensate for captivity is making sure they have chance to move, explore, use their noses and other sense as much as they would in the wild. (That applies to all my animals).

dollyanna said:

The wildies near my ponies certainly eat some of the stuff I forage - cow parsley, sticky weed, brambles - because you can clearly see their foraging ground, and outside it this stuff is thriving, inside nearer their holes it is still almost non-existent because the wildies get there first! Much of the plantage is clearly eaten down to the ground like it is on my lawn at home.

As an addition to the pellet conversation, we did try Odin with pellets briefly when we couldn't get weight on him, but it actually had the opposite effect and he lost more. We couldn't maintain his weight or his gut health on pellets. I think he just ate pellets over anything else and it wasn't enough, when we took them out he started eating more grass, hay and dried forage again and the weight went up.
The idea of perfect nutrients in pellets is a bit false too - the RDA is a guide, but this will be unique to each individual. So even feeding the exact amount of pellets to get the nutrients for an individual rabbit could still result in deficencies if they have difference requirements for some reason. And require nutrients varies day to day too, depending on weather, exercise, health amongst other things. And then you don't know the exact content of nutrients in your hay, grass, any forage you use for enrichment, treats, hiding medicines. Unless you only feed pellets in exactly the right amounts and nothing else, your balances are going to be unbalanced - something as simple as when and where the hay was cut for example will make a huge difference to it's content.
The thing that bugs me about pellets is that the ingredient list for most - even the good ones - contains things you are advised not to feed rabbits. It doesn't make sense to me that it isn't ok to feed them in their natural form, but mushing them up and turning into pellets is ok.
Aside from that - for me - is the huge importance of enrichment. Feeding different types of food, in a variety of ways, is essential as far as I am concerned when you keep any animals who can't fulfil their normal lifestyle. One of the ways I try to compensate for captivity is making sure they have chance to move, explore, use their noses and other sense as much as they would in the wild. (That applies to all my animals).

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Oh, it definitely sounds like the wildies there enjoy their plants, when they're eaten down to the ground and almost non-existent closer to their holes!

That's interesting that Odin actually lost weight on pellets because he preferred it so much that he didn't eat enough other stuff. I'm glad you've got his diet and weight sorted out now. You do give them a great diet, and a very enriching one, yes. And I agree with you that there are ingredients in even good pellets that you normally wouldn't feed a bunny. That does bother me, too, and makes no sense. You're right, too, that every bunny could have different requirements and that even pellets and guidelines aren't perfect and might still leave them with deficiencies. I really think that it depends on each bunny what their best diet is, and what they do well on.


This isn't a response to anyone, but it makes me think of Tom, Sophie's previous friend. He was a dental bunny, and he had long periods where he could only eat Science Selective pellets (I think because they're easy to pick up and easy to chew), especially for about the last two years of his life, though he'd eat a bit of dried forage, too, when he could. So, during these periods I'd let him eat as many pellets as he wanted, because I didn't want him to be hungry and he still needed to be able to keep his guts going by eating a lot. So, you'd think he'd gain a lot of weight, but he never did, and he actually did quite well on a diet of only water, pellets, and a little bit of dried forage (he was put to sleep at the end because of an untreatable dental abscess (we did try), not because of problems that came from his diet). Obviously this is an extreme case, and not something recommended for healthy bunnies, but it's why I think that it can be okay to give them more pellets than recommended if that's what a bunny needs, and that the perfect diet really depends on the situation.

Yep, exactly - I think if the bunny is happy, healthy, a good weight not too fat and not too lean, active, then the best diet is the one that works for them. You only have to read this forum for a while to see the immense variety of feeding methods that rabbits can need or benefit from, and all we can do is keep an open mind and be prepared to try other things when needed to give them the best we can.

I think in fairness though, not many folk are open minded about the need (in a lot of cases) for a proper amount of pellets, to the point even the RWAF is being doubted (I doubted them myself on the amount of hay they said was required, although to be fair I was more doubting myself as I know my bun couldn't eat this much and wondered if he was the only one). In fairness as far as I can tell, a reader of books has been the only one to openly consider it. Unfortunately I do find in any animal 'hobby' once you have a certain idea going (even if it for good reason/good basis), this tends to be the grain and anything suggesting otherwise is often not considered, in any form, even when there are fair points. Old habits die hard and always have (it's only now the 'no muesli' move actually seems to be the go to, of course there's exceptions to the rule, but on the whole I don't see a whole lot of buns being fed muesli, and I see plenty of advice against it, which is a good thing). But sometimes as we know, things can be extremely slow to get moving/other ideas to be considered.

Obviously hay and grass is vitally important for so many reasons other posters have always covered and there's no argument that this should be the main diet. Not sure I can be unconcerned about vitamin and mineral deficiencies on the basis that 'pellets are bad, even if without them bun may have deficiencies' though. I'm not talking about folk who are carefully replacing pellets with forage and veg and doing adequate research though - I have utmost respect for them for the time and dedication provided for their buns to provide a natural diet that covers all bases. I am very concerned about Vitamin D though. In England, outdoor buns I imagine are unlikely to have this problem provided they have sufficient access to it, in Scotland I think it could be a very problem, along with indoor buns, because yes buns get their Vitamin D from the sunlight.

Out of interest, we have lots of wild buns here near us, that have open fields and woodland. It's easier to observe them in woodland where they seem to be spend much of their time here, in the absence of very much grass. They absolutely feast on more than just grass I can assure you. Rasperry (leaves and berries), blackberry leaves and berries, wild strawberries (try gathering them, the amount that have a munch taken out of them :lol and I do watch them feast. There is also lots of hawthorn, dandelions, really allsorts here for them to forage on and they are very active about it. I do wonder about Vitamin D but can only presume they have the choice to spend time in sunlight, and how much time to spend in it. Certainly the ones here don't shy away from it, but seem to prefer staying in woodland in the patches where sunlight shines through. That'll be because of the predators (lots of foxes and birds of prey, stoats etc). If your buns have a shed with attached run, while they get some, depending on the amount of sunlight that actually falls on it per day (remember it's a very common recommendation to position sheds/hutches + runs out of sunlight) then I do doubt whether they are getting enough.

There is no doubt that wildlies will struggle to access everything they need, particularly here in winter, which is the exact point of the problems comparing wild animals with domesticated pets. Not everything about the wild should be replicated. There are definitely aspects we should try to replicate in captivity to allow natural behaviour, but I don't think nutritional deficiences encountered by wild buns is a fair one to potentially inflict on domesticated buns simply because 'they wouldn't be able to access X Y or Z in the wild'. Deficiencies can lead to serious health problems. Bladder stones seems to be one of them, and whilst calcium has a part to play, calcium can't be processed correctly without adequate vitamin D, and is a problem across a wide range of captive species. Reptiles is one the hobby has known about for decades (leads to a horrendous condition called metabolic bone disease, and if not caught early enough, is not treatable), as well as bird keepers, which is why it's supplemented with UV lighting and vitamin supplements.

Actually I noticed Burgess have released a new indoor bun food that has added vitamin D. Just to point out though, certainly in the case of other species, this is not the natural way they'd receive it, and isn't considered anywhere near as good and absorbing it through the skin! A minefield, really! I think whatever we know about any animals, there's always advances and so much to be learnt from it. I know a lot of people are very knowledgable about the different hay types, whereas I really don't have too much of a clue, other than the basics about alfafa etc.