Pelleted feeds can be quite fattening for rabbits. They should only be getting a small amount of high quality pellets. Many people here use Oxbow Bunny Basics I believe. If your rabbit feed has colorful bits or seeds in it, it really isn’t good for your bunny and is even more fattening than most pellets. Bunnies can do fine on a pellet-free diet but they need to get a good mixture of greens to supplement their hay so they can get all of the nutrients they need. I have attached a photo of the “bunny food pyramid” which is a guideline that works for most bunnies but not all. You should talk to your vet and see what’s best for your bunny. 

kmurphy, nice food pyramid, haven’t seen that before! Very informative.

Rebelbun, hay itself has very little nutritional value, which is why it can be fed in unlimited amounts without making a rabbit overweight. It’s main role in a rabbit’s diet is to provide roughage, which is important to keep the digestive tract moving, and to wear down the teeth. A rabbit eating only hay would starve. Pellets contain a lot of the nutrients a rabbit needs, in addition to veggies. If you would cut out pellets completely, you would have to feed an insane amount of veggies (I think 10 or more different veggies a day?) to make up for the pellets.

What type of pellets were you feeding, and how much?

I have been feeding my buns veggies and hay for the last 6 years. Up until last November, they had very good reports from the vet on their health. Currently, Stewie is eating romaine, dandelions and kale. I try to vary the greens but he has really gotten picky in his old age.

A rabbit can do well on a hay and veggie diet, but if they don’t get pellets, they are supposed to get 15 different veggies/greens a day. That is a lot of greens and that might not be easy to accomplish. A 5 – 7 pound adult rabbit, should only get around 1/4 cup pellets a day – timothy based pellets, with no seeds or colored bits. If Luna is around that weight, and you are giving her 1/4 cup or more pellets a day, try cutting it down first. You also should make sure that she gets plenty of exercise.

That sounds like a really good plan. I’m sorry you had to deal with her not eating! Our new bunny also stopped eating so I know how stessful that is. I’m glad she is feeling better!

Pippi stopped eating hay for I think maybe a couple of months after Rusty was PTS, even though he was bonded with Jenny the next day. He ate grass, out in the garden, veg and pellets, but stopped eating hay. Pippi can’t eat much veg, or he leaves messy offerings, there simply wasn’t enough grass in the garden, and too many pellets wasn’t the answer. I found a local pet store that sell 1 kg bags of dried grass, and thankfully he ate that, and eventually did start eating hay again.He has to be kept on around 90% hay and grass, but vet says he is a healthy weight and his teeth are perfect.

Maybe see if you can find dried grass, hay and grass are equally good for buns, and maybe it’ll get Luna chomping?

I’m so glad she’s eating again!

Hay does actually have quite a lot of nutrients, but it depends not only on type of hay but also on when it is harvested, if the season has been warm and dry or wet and cold, the composition of the soil, (f ex if it has been fertilized, if it’s naturally deficient in essential minerals such as magnesium or selenium)  and on how the hay is stored. The best thing is of course to supply your bun with a good variety of high-quality hay grown in different soils. That’s a bit tricky, honestly, so most bunny owners use pellets to ensure that the bun get all it needs – but it’s very easy to over-feed pellets and end up with a chubby bunbun. 

Here are nutritional values of many types of hay:

hay chart

Nowadays it has become common to feed non-working horses of the easy keeper-variety (an easy keeper is a horse that easily puts on weight) hay and forage only, possibly with supplemented selenium. 

The problem with recommending a bun be fed hay only is problematic imo not because hay has a low nutritional value, but because bunnies don’t do well with sudden radical changes of diet. Hay isn’t yummy like pellets and fresh veg, so the bun might not eat enough, and if a bunny doesn’t have food in their system, the system shuts down. The gut slows, appetite is lost, bun gets weak, stasis ensues unless you start support-feeding the bun. 

Fresh spring grass is actually rather a vitamin-injection for a bun, so if you give just a little bit, it’s really probably the best food a bun can get. Again start slow, avoid radical changes.