http://www.rabbit.org/journal/3-4/pellets.html

I think you might find the above link interesting and will hopefully help answer your queston.

As for bunnies in the winter, that’s the reason they produce cecals. The cecals are formed from the nutrients that are stored in the bunny’s body, so they excrete nourishment and then eat it again. It makes for a healthy food source during lean times.

Well, I think you need to understand that pellets were produced for rabbits in breeding situations. You can’t think these are natural. Rabbits in the wild don’t eat pellets and neither do horses.

I really like this diet article, it explains the scientific stuff well, I think…

http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/diet.html

Assuming that the most important thing is intestinal health, both hay and fresh greens will work towards that.  Hay for the fiber, veggies for fiber and hydration.  Many rabbits don’t drink a lot of water, so fresh, wet, veggies add a considerable amount of fluid.  An increase in pellets will typically decrease the amount of hay intake, since they are more “filling”, and pellets move sooo slowly thru the GI tract.  Hay and veggies are digested quicker, resulting in the rabbit having to eat even more hay/veggies to keep everything continuously moving.  They should be taking in food on a regular basis thru out the day.

My concern is not for the level of “completeness” of the pellet, but for the digestive benefit.  You can offer a complete diet feeding only pellets, but I don’t feel it offers a healthy diet for the long-term health of the rabbit.

I love these types of discussion, although I have no knowledge to bring in.

But when Beka mentioned that part with veggies containing water, I thought of cats. Lots of house cats suffer from bladder stones et.c because they get dry food. Cats need a high fluid intake daily, but actually rarely drink the necessary amount of water. In the wild, they would get the fluid from the animals they kill. Now, I have no idea if this applies for bunnies, but if it does, then surely you will see more internal problems in rabbits who only get pellets and hay – and not watery veggies?

I assume…

Wild rabbits in the winter live on twigs and the bark of certain bushes and trees as well as they will eat dead grass on the ground and even roots in the ground that they dig up during tunnel constructions. It would be very difficult to provide a sufficient variety to our domestic rabbits of those items and wild rabbits as other wildlife too, can suffer deficiencies in bad winter situation depending on their location, layer of snow and general body condition.
The trouble with fulfilling a rabbit’s dietary needs with pellets is that they are a concentrated feed that satisfies caloric requirements in minimal amounts. A rabbit’s teeth grow about 3″ per year and must abrade constantly to keep them short. Only a diet that has bunny munching 80% of his time can do that. So hay and veggies will have a rabbit chewing and abrading teeth without making him fat. Pellets were originally formulated to make feeding rabbits in commercial rabbitries easy. Those rabbits don’t get to live a long life as the house rabbits do, so the long-term implications of a pelleted diet does not matter.
In theory, if you were to give fresh wild grasses and blossoms and shoots and twigs you may fulfill the veggie requirement that way but it would be impossible to do in a city. You’d also need to be able to identify plants and know their toxicities. It is much easier to just buy cultivated vegetables.
Horses are similar in their digestive system and their teeth too sometimes require filing down; but horses don’t dig in the ground for example and don’t strip bark off branches the way a rabbit does. So their nutrition is not identical to a horse.

well, that’s like saying why do some people live as long or longer healthy even though they were eating junk food. ~ some individuals are just tougher than others.

http://www.leithpetwerks.com/Bunfun/nonpellet.html

Perhaps you need to look at the benefits as per the above article.  Pellets really aren’t that beneficial to rabbits. 

Posted By bunnnnnnie! on 07/30/2010 10:56 AM

Posted By Petzy on 07/30/2010 10:52 AM
well, that’s like saying why do some people live as long or longer healthy even though they were eating junk food. ~ some individuals are just tougher than others.

However I don’t think I’d really consider a rabbit diet of grass hay and a quality timothy-based pellets, with greens excluded, junk food.
 

I didn’t mean it literally. I meant to illustrate by exaggeration that individuals can tolerate more or less in diet variances.

You could offer a greater plant variety by getting a mix of hays. Carrots are good too as is spinach when the store has it fresh. If you are concerned about not being able to offer all recommended vegetables every day, I wouldn’t; especially if your rabbit is a good hay eater.

Have you tried Mint with Zeus? Mint is very easy to grow. My rabbits love it. You can grow it in a pot. What I like about mint too is that it is not easily perishable like basil.

Pet nutrition- especially rabbit nutrition is not an exact science.  Rabbit nutrition especially intended for long-lived house bunnies is actually a pretty new thing.

One really good reason not to follow bag guidelines for feeding- the companies main purpose is to sell food- the more your bunny eats- the more they sell.  The companies are going to recommend MORE food than less- even from a legal standpoint of you feeding X amount of food and your animal starves to death- that is the companies fault if those are their instructions.  But if your pet gets fat from feeding the amount- that is your fault and not theirs- and not as much liability is involved with overweight vs death.  And I am sure there are disclaimers on the bag and the animals health needs to be considered- but the more you feed- the more $ they make.

You used horse nutrition as an example- that is still pretty widely debated- and one manufactures website will tell you why their product is the BEST for your horse- and another manufacturers website will also provide information, studies and statisitcs as to why THEIR food is the best (and this info often conflicts from company to company).   In some cases- I am sure that feeding grain or any other type of supplement in addition to hay is not appropriate. 

Cottontails only live about 3 years in the wild- and they live under harsh, harsh conditions.  If they did not reproduce like….well, bunnies- they would probably be few and far between.

You could fix yourself a meal plan for the day that followed EXACTLY what the FDA (?) recommends- but would you want to eat that exact meal every day for a week?  How about months, years????

See if you have a gardening club or composter group in your area and see if anyone has some growing they could start you off with. I’ve found offering them some bunny poo gets me some nice plants or cuttings!

This is from Oxbow:

http://www.oxbowanimalhealth.com/pet_care/rabbits/nutrition

It’s interesting that they say only feed more than one teaspoon of day of veggies…huh?  Well I guess they are trying to sell their pellets.

Personally for me, health benefits aside, I love watching my rabbits eat their veggies, and they seem to enjoy eating them. I think it provides more mental stimulation than sitting in front of a bowl and chomping one uniform pellet after another.

My pair will go after different favorite greens at first. Max will drag out a full romaine leaf and munch it without stopping from end to end. Meadow takes more dainty bites. I keep the parsley whole (I bury it with only the end sticking up), and it’s hilarious to watch Max try and pull the whole stem out of their bowl. He has to throw his entire body backwards to get enough momentum to get it out. And my absolute favorite is when they fight over one green, despite the fact they have an entire pile right next to them. They will snatch it from each other over and over and over again. (One of my favorite pics are of Meadow stealing Max’s greens before they were bonded. She had a bowl next to her, but she was pulling one of his leaves thru the pen bars.) For a long time, I threw away the romaine cores. I thought, “Ew, I don’t eat romaine cores, why would they?” But thanks to Binkybunny, I learned that cores are a favorite part for some rabbits. So the fun isn’t even over once the leaves are gone. The core becomes a ball that rolls around and they tear bits off of it thru out the day. And once the greens are gone, Max will “surf” in his empty, big blue bowl. He puts his front feet in it, bites at the upper edge and rolls the bowl around. He’ll do this back and forth repeatedly. It’s hilarious to watch.

So what I’m hoping is that my babbling goes to show, there’s more than health and hydration and intestinal movement involved. They LIKE veggies. And for me, that is a big reason as to why they are required. Also I LIKE feeding veggies. I like the shopping routine and the preparation and the washing and the enormous amount of fridge space that is occupied. It takes no thought to dump pellets and hay in a cage (my 7-year-old has completely taken over pellet feeding). Veggies take thought and force interaction.

A teaspoon of veggies?

I recommend trying Cilantro for Zeus.. a lot of bunnies scarf it up  Its smelly, but tasty to bunnies!

I feed ChaCha the amount of greens that are equal to her about her body size.