Lettuce talk about rabbit food
When we use the phrase ‘rabbit food’, we often think ‘salad' but, when it comes to rabbits, this is not the right diet to follow. It’s important to feed your rabbits a good mix of high-quality grass and hay, as well as a variety of vegetables, weeds and leaves. Hay and grass contain indigestible fibre that is vital for your rabbit’s gastro-intestinal health, and it will also keep your rabbit’s constantly growing teeth in good shape. If you have a lawn, pop your rabbit outside (as long as they are vaccinated and have been treated against parasites) to have a graze which will provide them with not only a good source of fibre but exercise too!
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Lawn mowing clippings should not be given to your rabbit as this can cause digestion problems. Offer them fresh grass or let them graze.
Complement the daily intake of grass and hay with carefully selected vegetables, weeds and leaves:
- Cruciferous vegetables – cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, sprouts
- Spring greens
- Kale and parsley
- Carrots tops
- Green beans
- Pea-leaves
Appropriate leaves and weeds include:
- Fruit-free leaves and twigs
- Hazel leaves
- Dandelions
- Brambles
- Clover
- Dock
Meanwhile, avoid feeding your rabbit the following:
- Banana
- Apple
- Iceberg lettuce
- Tomato
- Sugary treats
These items are high ion sugar and low in fibre which is the opposite of what rabbits need. As well as a good, mixed diet, rabbits require clean drinking water that is changed twice a day. During the winter months, water should be changed more frequently to avoid freezing.
Run, rabbit run
It is important for rabbits to have space to hop, run and moe about as they would in the outdoors and in the wild. Research from the PDSA shows that sadly, *25% of rabbits in the UK are kept in small hutches with minimal or no space to run freely. Rabbits need to keep active through running and hopping to avoid sitting still and gaining additional weight.
It is recommended that the minimum amount of hours that your bunny should exercise is 3 hours, more if possible, to keep them fit and healthy. Encouraging your rabbit to exercise can be done in plenty of ways. In the wild, rabbits would forgage and explore the wilderness for food; this is a good way to exercfise at home.
- Digging. Rabbits enjoy time to dig! Living in burrows in the wild, which they have dug themselves, means it’s intuitive for your bunny to want to dig deep. You probably won’t want your rabbit digging up your lawn so perhaps get a shallow planter filled with soil to have fun with instead!
- Foraging. This isn’t something our domestic bunnies naturally do, given that we are their primary food provider. However, the PDSA suggest you can encourage this at home by making up ‘forage trays’ A big part of a rabbit’s day would usually be foraging for food. You can hide their food in amongst scrunched up newspaper or grass, freshly pulled from the ground (avoid lawn clippings as these can cause an upset tummy). Scattering some food across a clean area of their hutch or box filed with hay, outside, will help with that foraging instinct.
- Exploring. Exploring is instinctive to rabbits as they are naturally curious. You can help stimulate this with providing rabbit-safe toys and create tunnels which rabbits love to explore! While they’re in our gardens, they can’t really explore new places, so make sure you give them lots of rabbit-safe toys they can have a look at. You can also cut holes in a cardboard box for them to run through and explore or get them a rabbit-safe tunnel, to keep that curiosity going.
- Jumping. Jumping is a natural part of rabbit life so you might want to experiment with giving your rabbit different levels in their run to climb and jump from.
- Gnawing. Rabbits’ teeth continually grow so it’s important to provide them with things that are safe for them to gnaw. Small branches from apple, maple, birch and willow trees would be good for them.
*https://www.pdsa.org.uk/what-we-do/pdsa-animal-wellbeing-report
