Guide me on the vegetables, please!

Hey all! We currently have two small buns (a Netherland dwarf and a mini lop). Both were rescued from an inadequate situation several months ago, and are doing very well.

My kiddo, age 13, is in charge of their care, and has done extensive research on what they should eat and what habitat they should have (it's lovely). They have great hay and are eating oxbow pellets, and so with those elements we have no concerns.

Here is where it gets sticky......

She believes that they should eat 1/2 cup of greens per pound of bunny each day. This seems reasonable, except the only passable vegetables she will feed them are turnip greens, romaine, and mustard greens from the store. She rejected ideas of using cabbage, broccoli, darker greens because of oxalic acid concerns and others (carrots, etc) due to sugar concerns.

This high standard of feeding has resulted in the purchase of two-three packages of romaine hearts per week, of which she feeds the "green" bits and throws away the white bits. We live in a far north climate where fresh veg, particularly greens, can run pricey off-season and often are not available, and if so, only last a day (i.e. $7.00 for 6 oz of spring greens). Currently, those romaine hearts run about $10-15 per week...for 6 total pounds of bunny.

Now. We have a friend who wants to rehome her Flemish Giants (2) with us. I'm sitting back doing the math here, and with my daughter's current standards, the romaine would run us about $450 a month, or about $10 per pound of bunny per month. Did you just hear the brakes screech on bringing these two over?

(The current owner feeds apples, carrots, bananas, lettuce, cabbages, etc....quite a range, and says she does it on the cheap, at about $15 per week. Kiddo thought that plan was awful and full of bad nutrition and is horrified over the level of fruits and will not continue that "terrible" diet if she adopts them.)

And friends, we are now in ridiculous-land, if we weren't there before, so I could use some guidance about how she might relax some of her standards, or where she might find better advice about veg specifics. The kid takes a very precise approach to these kinds of things and so any solid scientifically-sound leads you have would really help, especially for a rigid-thinking teenager with high standards for her buns (who are very lucky to have her). If anyone has a link to something with very precise amounts of vegetables that are balanced for concerns of sugar, oxalic acid, etc., this would probably help a lot...or would at least give us another way of looking at it.

Thanks in advance--

Hi and welcome aboard

It is very nice to hear that your kid is so responsible rabbit owner, however expensive is not always best. She is generally right about carrots and apples (high on sugars so only one thumb sized once or twice a week), kale and cabbages also once a week, romaine they could eat with everything, also dark leafy lettuces (except of Iceberg).
Also you can use carrot greens if they sell with greens just ask them to keep some greens for your rabbit and collect every day as most people won't take them home, same with some other greens people usually leave in shops. There's nothing wrong with asking even if you are very rich but you could also reduce amount of waste and make your rabbits happy.

The main food for rabbits is always hay up to 80% of their diet, pellets are only 5% and vegs about 10% and healthy snacks like carrot or apple 5%, so your rabbits are mini sized if they have one handful of green leafy vegs daily that would be enough.

I personally have no experience with Flemmies (I will get one someday when I have room for them!) but here we have some owners hopefully they can share what they feed them I am pretty sure you can save on vegs by using them more rationally.

Here's rabbit food pyramid please note that it says Limit those high on sugar and calcium, you don't have to exclude them totally. Also you can use greens like dandelions or herbs, basil, mint, cilantro, you can sprout mustard seeds and have them on your kitchen top they are very easy to grow and fast growing so you won't have to buy.

Can't post picture but if you can follow this link you will see

http://www.fosterbunnies.com/food.htm

Mustard greens are actually high in oxalic acid. And turnip greens are high in calcium. So the 3 things being fed are not only more pricey, but not ideal. I'd considering substituting red or green leaf lettuce and/or "spring mix" for the mustard greens and turnip greens.

It is also cheaper to just buy the entire head of romaine lettuce rather than just the hearts. The hearts cost more yet the greener parts that are removed are exactly the parts that we want bunny eating.

I grow an herb garden to save a ton when it's not winter. I grow basil, cilantro, and parsley (among others).

In winter, for economy, I tend to go with those darker lettuces from the grocery store -- mostly leaf lettuces (incl romaine), spring mixes and the occasional parsley, cilantro, or spinach when they are priced well.

Thank you for your ideas, Blue eyes and Zupper! We really are in the boonies---our closest grocery store with any kind of "non-iceberg" options is about a 45 minute drive, and so it's tricky this time of year to be able to find anything that will last a few days other than those packaged romaine hearts....the heads, when we can get them, are about $3-4 dollars each and often will go over and be limp and gunky in a couple of days, and a box of spring mix at about 5 or 6 ounces will run $5-8 or so and also go nasty in a couple of days, so we really hemorrhage money on things like that. We're working on a basement garden now for the buns we have which could help for our 6 months of winter...but we did actually decide now not to take the homeless Flemishes as it was making the kiddo crazy to try and come up with a cheaper solution right now. Who knows, though, with a quality indoor growing house we might just be able to be super-posh with giant buns someday!

We're 25 miles from the nearest grocery store, so I understand. You might want to get those "green bags" made to prolong the life of greens in the refrig. I find it makes a big difference. Also keeping those greens in the veggie drawer of the refrig set to high humidity (if you have that option in your fridge).

https://www.amazon.com/Debbie-Meyer-GreenBags-Reusable-Vegetables/dp/B00I4V1U06

Good luck with your garden!

I have many shops around but do my food shopping just once a week, those pre-packed pre-washed salads won't survive that long, celery will. I know celery is a bit high on calcium but 1/2 stick per day is fine, so when it's really tough you need 7 sticks for a week for two bunnies would be absolutely fine. So that's one head of celery per week. Shouldn't be more that 1 dollar. I get carrot tops from organic shop once a week they give my tops of 3-4 bunches of carrots, as much as people buy and ask to remove the tops (I did it myself before I 've got rabbits, stripped cauliflowers too, there's always too many leaves). That would also be enough for two bunnies for a week. When you buy broccoli and cauliflowers for yourself pick ones with more leaves on them, rabbits love them and stems too, your rabbits are mini size so they would only need an inch of stem at once.
So basically if you get those vegs/leaves once a week when shop for food you are good for the whole week, get one carrot as well and one apple would last two weeks.

Here's an example of veg menu for the two your mini rabbits for a week (they also have unlimited hay and water and an egg cup of pellets daily, right?)

I shop on Wednesdays because less people so less time spent on shopping, so Wednesday-Thursday-Friday they get fresh leaves that won't last more than 3 days in a fridge (well, depending how you keep them, I personally manage to keep them fresh for a week, cut an inch of stems and put into a glass with water and keep in fridge, change water after 3-4 days, also you can cover them with plastic bag), after that celery, cauliflower leaves and stem, broccoli stem, one cabbage leaf for both 1/2 of carrot for both - all those vegs have longer life

Monday - 1/2 stick of celery each = 1 stick in total
Tuesday - one cauliflower leaf each = 2 in total
Wednesday - shopping day - fresh herbs - cilantro/basil/mint/dill or green/dark lettuces, salad leaves etc
Thursday - same as Wednesday
Friday - same as Wednesday
Saturday - one cabbage leaf for both
Sunday - one inch of carrot each so 2 inches in total / or one slice of an apple each

This is just an example so basically if you buy for a week
1-2 bunches of fresh herbs (basil, cilantro, dill, mint etc) will last 2-3 days
1 head of celery - 1/2 of stick per rabbit per day, 2-3 days per week (they won't eat the whole head per week so there's enough for your family too)
1 head of cauliflower - 1 leaf per rabbit per day, 2-3 times per week (you can eat cauliflower, just safe stem and leaves for your rabbits)
Or broccoli - there's not too many leaves unfortunately, but they would eat stem
1 carrot or 1 apple

I've heard of people getting salad from Subway or ordering from takeaways that would be very expensive, when you plan your shopping you can save lots of money!

Also, if they didn't get fresh vegs for 1-2 days this is not a problem at all, they can live on hay and water, vegs and pellets are only complementary, if you get fresh vegs 1-2 times a week during winter that would be fine. In nature they don't get greens in winter right?
Too rich diet is no good too, hay is most important.

I just want to say----thank you Zupper!!, and I can't imagine how wonderful it must to be to live where you live! Fresh basil, even! We can sometimes get that here off-season at the store, but (for example) .75 ounces of basil which is about 6-10 good leaves or so, is $2-4 here and comes in a plastic clamshell. Closer to summer we might see a rare loose bunch....but we also grow it at home (July, August, September only, though). We've traveled a lot, and there were times, like when we were in San Diego....I was just stunned in the grocery by how low the prices were. And they had these GIANT bunches of fresh things and they all looked so delicious. And it was December! I must have looked like I'd lost my mind.

Once in a real blue moon here we can get dollar-celery. It's usually around Thanksgiving...I think they assume we all use it for turkey stuffing. Otherwise it's $3 and up, or about $5 organic and up for about a 3" head. They get bigger in the summer, usually.

We can usually get a small bunch of fresh parsley, cilantro, etc., for 1-2 dollars (again usually on a styrofoam plate and wrapped with lots of saran wrap)..these will work in a recipe that needs about 1/4 cup chopped or about 1/2 cup including the stems. To get enough for a day's worth of bunnies, though...here we're creeping into the money pit again...

Especially if we'd taken those Flemish babies!---daily greens goes from 3 cups [for our current littles] to 23 cups and there went my wallet, hey? For example if I went with my kiddo's requirement with those two big girls as well---1/2 cup per pound of bunny per day, and one pack of parsley got me 1/2 cup, then 23 cups of greens would mean 46 packs of that parsley, or $92. For one day. With just our guys it would be 6 packs to get their 3 cups of greenery, but even then....$12 a day.

Our community is part of all kinds of programs that are targeting "food deserts", but to be honest what they are doing about it is mostly ridiculous--grants that fund a truck to come around with stuff like bread and milk (which is already totally accessible here). The local shop (not the one I mentioned above with the 45 minute drive in winter where I can get romaine or the clamshell herbs), which is kind of a hybrid place with grocery, alcohol, cigarettes, etc. carries a few vegetables this year that they didn't before, so now we have occasional lemons, oranges, apples, bananas, green peppers, iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, potato and onions. They sell about 6 each or so at a time in these darling little baskets, and they are pretty pricey, usually a bit limp, but I've been known to cave for a $2 lemon or a bag of onions in a pinch there. Still--nothing good for bunnies, really.

Here the other bunny owners we know personally are mostly meat-rabbit people or 4-H kids and don't feed any fresh in the winter--just hay and pellets, and they think I'm totally nuts for even considering all this fresh for additional buns. Kiddo was not fond of their perspective at all! But--after this couple of weeks of "reality" work I think eventually she will become a touch more practical...Still, no giants for us for now.

Lana Nassen said:

For example if I went with my kiddo's requirement with those two big girls as well---1/2 cup per pound of bunny per day, and one pack of parsley got me 1/2 cup, then 23 cups of greens would mean 46 packs of that parsley, or $92. For one day. With just our guys it would be 6 packs to get their 3 cups of greenery, but even then....$12 a day.

Here the other bunny owners we know personally are mostly meat-rabbit people or 4-H kids and don't feed any fresh in the winter--just hay and pellets, and they think I'm totally nuts for even considering all this fresh for additional buns.

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I had to check with Google and it says 2 cups chopped vegetables per 6 lbs. body weight for an adult. Not per pound of bunny per day, but per 6lbs.
I don't know honestly my rabbits don't get 2 cups per day each usually, definitely less than that, but I still think that they are good looking and healthy rabbits, I know by checking their poos they are perfect, when they get more vegs or pellets poos are getting darker, when you feed too much vegs they can get softer and even get diarrhea so I think that they are getting enough and not too much vegs per day. In my experience they are healthier when they get hay, their poos are light and perfect and they never have any problem with stomach. They get 1/2 or 1 celery stick per day or 1-2 cauliflower leaves or a few stems of cilantro or carrot tops and they are happy with that. 2 inches of carrot once a week or a slice of an apple.
I grow some herbs in summer mint basil yarrow chamomile mustard etc, I grow celery from scraps so it's free.
Maybe I am wrong I'll wait to see what other people feed their rabbits.
But you're probably right it sounds really tough where you live can't imagine what you eat at all so maybe two flemmies would be too expensive to keep.

Here's how you can regrow celery it is really easy and you can do it in winter too. You use it all just leave the middle with 2-3 small stems put in water and you will have green leaves in a week or so.
Celery


Here's 14 vegs you can easily regrow, you don't need onions garlic or leaks but carrot tops are very easy to grow on your windowsill, celery is super easy. Mint is super easy, thyme is super easy too. There are tons of video tutorial I just posted first two google it. Lettuce also easy and romaine lettuce grows well.

Mustard greens really fast growing