Not eating fresh food

Rabbits Online Forum

Help Support Rabbits Online Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Rayen

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 25, 2009
Messages
150
Reaction score
2
Location
, Manitoba, Canada
Over the last few months I've gone from just simply washing their vegetable bowl between feedings to dumping out 70-90% of the vegetables that have been offered. It's all typically the same stuff they've always gotten, about a cup of organic baby field greens, with random topping vegetables. Things like carrots, broccoli, spinach, bell peppers (of various colours), chard, kale, dill, parsley, cilantro. They also rarely get a small piece of fruit, something like a couple of grapes or a half of a strawberry (whatever fruit I happen to eat, which is pretty much 90% strawberries/grapes).

I'm not exactly sure what they're eating throughout the day. I give several handfuls of hay throughout the day but they are extremely picky of what they will eat. They will eat a few pieces and use the rest as additional litter in their box. I will fill up both of their hay racks and they will stay full until I clean them out and replace it all. Then they get 1/4 of a cup of pellets each separated into two separate feedings of 1/8 of a cup. The only additional food they might get is a small homemade treat from a recipe I found on these forums and maybe a small chunk of a hay cube.

It's not like they're not eating period, it's just like they've decided all of a sudden that they don't like the vegetables they've been offered. So we went out and made a little garden for them, surprise surprise they won't eat anything out of there either. I've tried cutting the baby greens out and making a plain salad for them out of whatever we have in the fridge and that doesn't work.

I guess the main point of this big long post is this: Is there anyway to get them to eat their vegetables again? I've tried different stores, I've tried growing my own, I've tried mixing it up with different vegetables. They will only eat their absolute favourites (like the herbs and the sweeter vegetables) and then they'll take a nibble of one leaf of the leftovers and ignore the rest. In fact, they have a giant pile of grass mixed with mint, cilantro, parsley and dill and the only bit they've eaten was a single strand of grass I hand-fed to my more adventurous bun. I think they won't eat the parsley/dill/cilantro because I dared to add a few small mint leaves. :rollseyes
 
I think what your question should be is "Why" they aren't eating their vegies all of a sudden.

Your rabbits should have a stable base of feed where they get all of their required nutrients every day-and this can be found in pellets. Without pellets, your rabbits really aren't getting what they need and may have a nutritional deficiency. Even just a couple of tablespoons of pellets a day (along with their hay and veggies ) can greatly improve your rabbit's health and attitude towards different food.

It does seem rather odd that your rabbits have turned their noises up at any veggies, even new ones. You may want to take them to the vet to see if they have some form of digestion problems, tooth problems, or deficiency.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top