Feeding

[Victoria]

Hi

Few questions about nutrition: My rabbit recently choked on pellets and we want to keep him on a pellet free diet. He always is very greedy with pellets and he gobbles the food down, especially the pellets.

What greens do you find are good for your rabbits?

Do they tolerate watercress well? beetroot greens?

 

[fuzz16]

ive onjly heard of one person doing a no pellet diet and thats because her two rabbits refuse to eat any type of pellets.
they feed a LOT of hay and different types other than timothy to get all thier protein.

heres a suggested veggie list from House Rabbit Society.
http://www.rabbit.org/care/veggies.html

someone else may have more input...

 

[SweetSassy]

I wouldn't take the pellets away. They get the extra vitamins and stuff they need.Consult with your vet.



If you do take the pellets away, Like Brenda said, you need to give lots of different hays & grass.

 

[Sox]

Are your rabbits just babies? I recently noticed there are 2 different sizes of pellets. The ones I use are the small ones and most places have the bigger ones. Maybe size may help?

Sox's favourites are the green leaves of the carrots, pak choy, spinach, leaves of broccoli. He prefers the green leaves more than stems as well as carrots.

 

[Victoria]

Hi. Thanks for your answers.
I am still worried about giving them pellets after seeing one of the rabbits nearly die. He was very weak and he was fully choking, no air was going in and if not for my fiance Rob he would not have made it. I did not know how to help him. At the moment he is off pellets. He eats: beetroot tops, carrot tops, and greens such as watercress, parsley, coriander, bok choy - in the morning and at night but eg beetroot, carrot tops and watercress in the morning and the rest at night, we alternate the combination of greens. He also eats carrots as treats couple of times a week- only small carrots, a slice of apple or other fruit (pear, peach banana or kiwi), watermelon and they have access to hay all the time. (but only one type of hay we dont have any other in the shops).

 

[Victoria]

My rabbits are 2.5 year olds. They never choked before and always ate pellets until 3 days ago. I just dont want to see what I saw again. How do rabbits live in the wild they must manage somehow without pellets I thought

 

[SweetSassy]

Can you order Orchard grass or other hayonline? Or get grass from outside?

 

[Victoria]

We cant get grass from outside we are in Australia and we have myxomatosis and we cant vaccinate in her (it is illegal because of the wild rabbit problem here). We feed them "pasture" grass.

 

[Sox]

Hi Victoria

I just read your other thread in the other section and sorry to hear what happened. I am so glad that your rabbit is better now. If I went through that, I too would not want to touch another pellet again either.

Yeah, I agree if the wild ones can live on just greens so can the domestic. I guess talking about pellets is like human beings talking about breast milk versus powdered milk. Guess it's everyone to their own depending on one's situation of course.

Hope all goes well. If you have City Farmers or Better Pets & Gardens over there they should be able to get you various types of hay like Oates Hay or Meadow Hay (Timothy)

Cheers, Carol

 

[Victoria]

Hi Carol
I myself am not sure if to give it or not, thats why I wrote to hear other people's opinions.
I did not see City Farmers or Better Pets & Gardens around where we are.
I think may be pellets are not that good even though we always gave them pellets without any problems before, because in nature they dont have any of this but then there they have different conditions.

 

[Hazel-Mom]

Hi Victoria, You can have a rabbit on a no-pellet diet. I have one who didn't eat pellets for about 5 years.
You do have to feed a good variety of greens and hays, and according to Randy, they'd need atleast 10 minutes of outside sunshine a day, for vitamin D.

What you could do though is give a very small amount of pellets (Hazel gets less than a spoonfull a day now), and spread them out over their area, in little heaps.
That's what I do for Hazel, she loves to "go find" her "goodies" . It also encourages her to forage, and move around more.
I just put little heaps of 4-5 pellets in different places, and she has to go search for them.

I think that would give your rabbit enough pellets for the nutrients that she may lack if you can't get a varied diet of hays and greens, and in small enough quantities that she can't "scarf" them and choke.

Also, a good, extensive list of rabbit safe foods is this one: http://earthhome.tripod.com/saferab.html

It lists all sorts of vegetables, "weeds" and herbs, as well as twigs, shrubs and flowers. I think it's from the UK, so you may recognize enough of the plant names on it.

 

[Victoria]

My rabbits never go out! It is because of myxomatosis and because we cant vaccinate against it in this country and the disease occurs in the wild ones who are not natural in this country and are being killed because they are pests. I am worried about other diseases as well. I know of people whose rabbit died from myxo not too far from where I am not that long ago.
The room they are in is sunny though.
I still give them about a tablespoon of pellets each day, I either hand-feed them to the rabbits or I scatter them how you described.
Thanks I will have a look at the safe foods list.

 

[Victoria]

There is no vaccine against it and it is common in the wild because it was somehow release into the wild from an experimental lab and the myxo we have here is stronger than in other countries so if they get it they die 100%. The reason for having no vaccine I read was because the government and the farmers etc dont want the vaccinated rabbits provide the immunity to the wild ones either because the vaccine is live virus and it can give immunity to the other ones or some other scientific reason I am not sure about.

 

[Sox]

I too am from Australia and I too am afraid of the myxomatosis. This weekend, I actually took Sox out for the very first time. I believeshe hasnever been out in the fresh air in allher life. WellIwent to the trouble ofcarrying/dragging herwhole hutch outside all by myself, a bloody big job too as it's a4-5 foot hutch .... and did she enjoy her outdoors ...... :XNO... :biggrin2::? ... guess being her first time, she was actually terrified of the sound of insects and birds, and the warm sun and the slight breeze. And then last night I noticed she is cleaning herself much more often! Hopefully she hasn't been bitten by any sandflies etc ... or it could be just my imagination playing up! :shock: Or maybe it's that time of the year where she is molting. Anyway, will see, I don't think I will take her outside again for a while, I think I was more stressed than she was!!! :biggrin2:

 

[Victoria]

I dont take them outside at all. I try to open a window in the room so that the sun and the breeze cancome in, Red rabbit likes to sit in the sunlight, he looks like he is enjoying it. The rabbit that died from Myxi lived next to a water marsh or something like that (sorry, it is not my first language, so thats why sometimes it may not make sense the way Iexplain some things!)there are different sort of mosquito Rob my fiance said, but also it can come from fleas from infected rabbits - so dont go anywhere you know there are wild rabbits if you can help it. We dont have wild rabbits were we live for a couple of kilometers so may be we will go one day for a walk with them. They dont like their leashes and run wildly pulling on it so we have to train them first to get use to them. Also some problems like spores or viruses may be brought from outside on clothes especially shoes so be careful if you are in the area where wild ones are. Anyway you prob know this.