Lisa@BunnyZooRescue
Member
What is your take on this ,,,what produce should you feed them ?Information on this would be great .:dude:
Pellet free diet ???
- Thread starter Lisa@BunnyZooRescue
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Pipp
Well-Known Member
Pipp, my dwarf, won't eat hay and she has molar spurs.
She LOVES her pellets but she gets very few. (She's an indoor bunny who hates hay and needs the vitamins she's losing from no sun among others).
She gets a mega-salad every night with as much variety as I can muster. I give her at least one or two stemmy veggies like carrot tops, parsley, cilatro, dill, etc (although she usually leaves the stems :X), a broad softer green like lettuce, spinach or beet greens; a hard chewy leaf like kale (which is the best of the lot although I don't give it to her constantly), chard or cabbage; and broccoli stems and carrot. When she gets apple, she gets as much peel as possible.
My produce managers at Capers (whole food market for those not in the neighbourhood), are my best friends.
I nip the 'compostâ vegetables before they hit the compost, like carrot tops, beet greens, celery and broccoli leaves, radish tops, parsley and cilantro stems the outer cabbage leaves, fennel leaves (they sell the root and discard the leafy stems â another favorite).They often throw in other things. And the bunnies get the âbonesâ (as JimD aptly calls them) â from my own groceries -- the cores of lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage heads, herb, spinach and other stems that can nicely âfluff upâ a bunny salad.
Or at least they're supposed to. More often than not I'm begging the buns to be allowed to keep a few broccoli flowers and carrots before the bunnies get them.
Welcome to the forum!
sas :bunnydance:
She LOVES her pellets but she gets very few. (She's an indoor bunny who hates hay and needs the vitamins she's losing from no sun among others).
She gets a mega-salad every night with as much variety as I can muster. I give her at least one or two stemmy veggies like carrot tops, parsley, cilatro, dill, etc (although she usually leaves the stems :X), a broad softer green like lettuce, spinach or beet greens; a hard chewy leaf like kale (which is the best of the lot although I don't give it to her constantly), chard or cabbage; and broccoli stems and carrot. When she gets apple, she gets as much peel as possible.
My produce managers at Capers (whole food market for those not in the neighbourhood), are my best friends.
I nip the 'compostâ vegetables before they hit the compost, like carrot tops, beet greens, celery and broccoli leaves, radish tops, parsley and cilantro stems the outer cabbage leaves, fennel leaves (they sell the root and discard the leafy stems â another favorite).They often throw in other things. And the bunnies get the âbonesâ (as JimD aptly calls them) â from my own groceries -- the cores of lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage heads, herb, spinach and other stems that can nicely âfluff upâ a bunny salad.
Or at least they're supposed to. More often than not I'm begging the buns to be allowed to keep a few broccoli flowers and carrots before the bunnies get them.
Welcome to the forum!
sas :bunnydance:
Hazel-Mom
Well-Known Member
Hazel, my Cottontail, has nearly the same diet as Pipp
She refuses to eat hay, but she does eat dried leaves, vines and some twigs (mainly grape vines and leaves, willow, dried herbs: basils, mints, lemonbalm, agastache, a little alfalfa. That's my own "specialty hay" I grow and dry for her.)
She eats lots of greens, at least twice a day. Her "mainstay" are dandelion, 2 or 3 kinds of Kale, Romaine, green-leaf and red-leaf lettuce, Italian Parsley, and Dill.
This is her main salad in winter, the rest of the year that is supplemented with anything we can grow in our yard: different types of basils and mints, pineapple sage, Japanese chrysanthemum, salad burnet, chives, cilantro, agastache, several herbs like sages, oreganos, thymes, marjoram, strawberry leaves, blueberry leaves, nasturtium, white clover, different salads, and of course carrots and carrot tops, radish tops, grass.
She also gets the flowers of all the herbs and veggies, along with roses, violets, chamomile, marigolds (if they want to grow that year )
In winter, when there are less fresh greens, she does get some pellets, she thinks of them as "treats".
She also gets fruit treats, though we're trying to limit those to one piece of fruit per day (not always succesfully, LOL, she has my husband wound around her little paw). Her favorite fruits are banana, apple, mango, blueberry, strawberry (she mostly prefers the dried fruits).
She turned six in January, is very healthy, has no teeth problems, and only has had gas or GI slowdown twice.
(And she's still a bit chubby "pleasingly plump" LOL. Too much of the good stuff when she was little.... )
She refuses to eat hay, but she does eat dried leaves, vines and some twigs (mainly grape vines and leaves, willow, dried herbs: basils, mints, lemonbalm, agastache, a little alfalfa. That's my own "specialty hay" I grow and dry for her
.)She eats lots of greens, at least twice a day. Her "mainstay" are dandelion, 2 or 3 kinds of Kale, Romaine, green-leaf and red-leaf lettuce, Italian Parsley, and Dill.
This is her main salad in winter, the rest of the year that is supplemented with anything we can grow in our yard: different types of basils and mints, pineapple sage, Japanese chrysanthemum, salad burnet, chives, cilantro, agastache, several herbs like sages, oreganos, thymes, marjoram, strawberry leaves, blueberry leaves, nasturtium, white clover, different salads, and of course carrots and carrot tops, radish tops, grass.
She also gets the flowers of all the herbs and veggies, along with roses, violets, chamomile, marigolds (if they want to grow that year
)In winter, when there are less fresh greens, she does get some pellets, she thinks of them as "treats".
She also gets fruit treats, though we're trying to limit those to one piece of fruit per day (not always succesfully, LOL, she has my husband wound around her little paw
). Her favorite fruits are banana, apple, mango, blueberry, strawberry (she mostly prefers the dried fruits).She turned six in January, is very healthy, has no teeth problems, and only has had gas or GI slowdown twice.
(And she's still a bit chubby "pleasingly plump" LOL. Too much of the good stuff when she was little.... )
anneq
Well-Known Member
Hey Ya'll...saw this topic and was interested since I just came across an article on this same subject i.e. pellet-free diet.
We just started giving our baby buns (7 weeks) fresh collard greens..and they love it..course, we're starting out slowly so their tummies can adjust..but our babies have been eating hay right after mom started weaning them...about 10 days ago..I always keep a lot of fresh Timothy hay for mom & dad...and the babies would explore/eat it while with them. We give our adult buns fresh collard greens, turnip greens, mustard greens, cilantro...and they love dandelion greens (who knew weeds would serve such a 'noble' purpose)
Anyhow, hope it's ok to post a link to the article I read that lead me to consider a more 'pellet-less' diet:
Bon appetite!:
http://www.hrschicago.org/dietcarefr.html
We just started giving our baby buns (7 weeks) fresh collard greens..and they love it..course, we're starting out slowly so their tummies can adjust..but our babies have been eating hay right after mom started weaning them...about 10 days ago..I always keep a lot of fresh Timothy hay for mom & dad...and the babies would explore/eat it while with them. We give our adult buns fresh collard greens, turnip greens, mustard greens, cilantro...and they love dandelion greens (who knew weeds would serve such a 'noble' purpose
)Anyhow, hope it's ok to post a link to the article I read that lead me to consider a more 'pellet-less' diet:
Bon appetite!:
http://www.hrschicago.org/dietcarefr.html
pamnock
Well-Known Member
Here's a great link that covers a lot of green foods. http://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?P=A&A=673&S=5
However, don't go overboard on hay when utilizing a green diet - filling up on fiber w/o nutrition is not healthy for your rabbit.
Pam
However, don't go overboard on hay when utilizing a green diet - filling up on fiber w/o nutrition is not healthy for your rabbit.
Pam
tonyshuman
Well-Known Member
What I have heard is that offering a variety of hays is more important than a variety of vegetables when eliminating pellets from the diet. Hays offer different nutrients than greens, and these are apparently the same nutrients that are found in pellets.
Hazel-Mom
Well-Known Member
IMO, that's just said because it's easyer to buy hays than provide a variety of greens.
Hay is just dried grass, so it has the same nutrients as the grass it's made of.
Pellets are usually based on hay, BUT they also have ADDED minerals, vitamins, proteins, etc. (Just have a look at the ingredients list).
So no, I don't believe just supplying different hays will give you the same nutrients as pellets.
I do believe that, since in nature rabbits don't eat just grasses alone, they do need other greens as well, to supply some of the trace nutrients that may not be found in grass.
Hay is just dried grass, so it has the same nutrients as the grass it's made of.
Pellets are usually based on hay, BUT they also have ADDED minerals, vitamins, proteins, etc. (Just have a look at the ingredients list).
So no, I don't believe just supplying different hays will give you the same nutrients as pellets.
I do believe that, since in nature rabbits don't eat just grasses alone, they do need other greens as well, to supply some of the trace nutrients that may not be found in grass.
