Bunnies and VItamin D

[MrBilboBagginsMammy]

I live in the UK with 2 beautiful house bunnies. Unfortunately at the moment I have no garden access, and the vet mentioned to me getting my buns outside when it’s sunny for abit most days is important for their Vitamin D intake to help keep their bones nice and strong etc. I was wondering if there’s any sort of food/drink/meds that has vitamin D in it that I could give them while they’re lacking the ability to go outside. It’s often rainy and horrid at the moment but when the sun does start coming I will of course try to take them to my local park when I can at the weekends for some sunlight and hopefully will be somewhere with a garden in not so long. Any help would be much appreciated. 

[Deleted User]

Um… My boy never goes outside and I never gave a second thought to him being vitamin D deficient? He eats his hay (not as much as he should – ggrrrrr!), good quality pellets (Oxbow), and a huge veggie salad each night. If your guys diet is good (I’m sure it is, he he he…) I wouldn’t be worried about providing a vitamin D supplement. Other BBer’s may disagree (all cool), and give supplements to their buns, but I personally wouldn’t be overly concerned. Wishing you sunshine soon – cheers MrBilboBagginsMammy.

[unknownphoenix]

I agree with AndHenry. A proper diet of high quality pellets and the correct amount of salad for their body weight should be plenty enough of proper nutrients and vitamins.

I would really think twice about taking them to a public park if I was you. You never know what kind of sprays are used there. Also fleas, ticks, and other yucky stuff that could get on your babies. Plus you never know if a dog will run up and attack, things like that can happen. I am probably paranoid but I just don’t feel its worth the risk. I also would assume that if you take them to a public place you would use a harness? That brings in a whole new discussion of dangers on that. I don’t want to sound like I am being rude, its not my intention just giving you some stuff to consider.

[Bam]

I found an article that said many rabbits in the UK have calcium-deficiency. Since vitamin D is key to the absorption of calcium in the small intestine , vitamin D is very important for rabbits who need a lot of calcium because of their ever-growing teeth.

http://www.rabbitwelfare.co.uk/resources/content/info-sheets/calcium.htm

If you have a balcony you could sunbathe your bunnies there for a few minutes/day in the summer. The sunlight this time of year in f ex England is insufficient, it won’t make the body synthesize any vitamin D.

 

Other than good quality pellets I don’t know of any supplements of vitamin D for bunnies. But I understand your concern, living in Sweden where many people have vitamin D deficiency from lack of exposure to UV radiation.

[rayray]

I buy vitamin D drops for myself in the dark days of winter. Maybe ask your vet if that would help and how much you would need to give them.

[MrBilboBagginsMammy]

Thankyou everyone for your responses. Yes they have a good balanced and healthy diet – nuggets/pellets for breakfast in the morning, hay always available and fresh veggies; broccoli, sprouts, parsley etc for supper every evening.

As for the park, yes I’d have to be very careful. I do have harnesses and also a travel pen in which I’d put them into for both their own security and my peace of mind. I used to sometimes take my older bunny and the house cat to it when we lived with her.

[LBJ10]

We had a discussion about vitamin D on here awhile back. Good quality pellets typically have vitamin D added. Like Oxbow I know has added vitamin D.

While vitamin D is important for calcium absorption, I have never heard of a rabbit having a problem with low calcium. Typically it is the other way around. Rabbits excrete a lot of the calcium they take in through their pee. Too much calcium leads to bladder stones and sludge, stuff like that.

[Bam]

LBJ, I’m sure you’re right. But shedding excess calcium in urine wouldn’t in itself mean that the rabbit gets too much calcium, it could mean that the calcium in the food doesn’t get absorbed properly in the small intestine but rather passes right through and is execreted in the urine. So there could at least theoretically be both calcium deficiency AND bladder-stones and sludge.

In Sweden we have a big problem with loss of bone-density in post-menopausal women, and Swedish people gets lots of calcium from their diet that is traditionally high in dairy-products. So calcium-deficiency is not the problem. Now the experts seem rather sure that the problem lies with low levels of vitamin D because vit D is required for the uptake of Ca.

But I also know you have way more knowledge than I of biochemistry and such =)

[LBJ10]

Vitamin D is required for calcium uptake, that is definitely true. If a rabbit is eating good pellets though, that should be the only vitamin D they need. Unless maybe they have a lot of oxalates in their diet, which binds to calcium and prevents its absorption.

Was there research done on this? I would be interested in seeing what they found.

[LBJ10]

I found an interesting article that warns of the dangers of too much vitamin D. It doesn’t say much about deficiency though. There is just one sentence – “In the case of vitamin D deficiency, intestinal absorption of calcium and phosphorus are not modified, but renal excretion of calcium is reduced”.

Agh, it won’t let me copy and paste. It talks about dietary requirements, where 600 to 1000 IU are recommended each day. Oxbow has 900 IU. And it says the risk of soft tissue calcification increases as the amount of calcium over the daily recommended amount increases. So bunnies with too much vitamin D end up with too much calcium in their blood, which in turn leads to calcification of arteries and such.

This article is from 2000. Vitamins in Rabbit Nutrition by Lebas F.

[LBJ10]

Sorry, I’m not trying to be argumentative. I’m just curious because my understanding has always been the dangers of excessive amounts of vitamins in rabbits. No one really talks about deficiencies.

[manic_muncher]

I thank you for that info LBJ. I was looking around too and they were talking about deficiencies in the UK, and of course I started to worry right away, since we really don’t have any sun herewith all the trees. I won’t even go into all the covered windows! Will have to look and see what my pellets have. I got what was available locally that the breeder was using, and it was a HUGE amount, but I do want to transition him over to a better food very soon.

[Bam]

Thank you, LBJ! I’m really interested in what you write and don’t take it as argumentative.

It does seem like our bunnies will be fine vitamin D-wise if we give them good quality pellets + the veggies and hay.

I wish there was a MOOC in rabbit physiology and health. There’s so much I’d like to learn about our little furry friends.

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