Natural healthy diet for rabbits?

[rfear]

Hello! I work for a production company in Dallas and we’re doing a television show called Natural Companions for a new network on Direct TV called Veria. I’m researching several topics, and if anyone could give me any help, that’d be wonderful!

-I’m looking for any tips on natural, healthy diets for pet rabbits. And especially looking for someone in the DFW area who feeds their rabbit fresh, natural food on a regular basis to be interviewed on camera about what they do.

– I’m intersted in any stories about people finding wild rabbits in their yard and what they did about it. (Humane stories only, please). Once again, if there is anyone local to the area that has a good story about their rescue of cute bunnies and would be willing to appear on camera about it, that would be much appreciated. Thanks!

rfear@amspg.com

[MooBunnay]

Hello

There is some great information on the recommended care for rabbits at the website http://www.rabbit.org . Rabbits should have a diet of mainly (about 90%) grass hay (such as timothy, or oat hay), and should have about 2 cups of fresh greens (such as romaine, parsley, or cilantro) and just a small amount (about 1/4 or 1/8 cup) of plain timothy hay pellets. Rabbits have incredibly fresh and natural diets, considering that almost all their diet comes from fresh vegetables and fresh hay.  Actually, after having rabbits around the house and being involved in rabbit rescue, I became a vegetarian.  For treats – rabbits get tiny pieces of fresh and dried fruits, or small pieces of carrots, so even their treats are natural and fresh.

I think another interesting topic to cover is living with rabbits indoors. Many people are very surprised when I tell them that I live with rabbits indoors that are litter trained. The largest group related to rabbits that I know of is the "House Rabbit Society" where they promote rabbits living indoors with companions. 

Also, the groups I work with like to promote that domestic rabbits can’t be dumped outdoors. They have no survival skills, yet many people think that the rabbit they bought from the pet store can be put outside when they don’t want it anymore this is not true, and domestic rabbits should not be "dumped" in the wild.

There is a nice rabbit group in Dallas called the "North Texas Rabbit Sanctuary" that promotes the proper care of rabbits that you might be interested in researching as well. You will find that almost all rabbit rescue groups promote the natural diet that I mentioned above.

Thank you for your interest!

[BB Administrator]

MooBunnay has given you some great information.

Also, regarding pellets: Pellets should have no little "extras", like dried fruit, seeds etc.   Just straight timothy hay based (or alfalfa based for babies)   The "extras" are like feeding snickers bars with your salad and can cause an imbalance in a  rabbit’s digestive system.  

A rabbit’s digestive system is extremely efficient in getting the most nutrients out of low fat/low calorie diet.  And even though domestic bunnies have been changed via breeding, their digestive system still have those abilities to "get the most from the least"  but now that they are living with us, they can receive nutrient rich higher calorie foods, which can sometimes cause problems, serious problems.  In layman terms, their system gets overloaded and can cause mild problems like "poopybutt" to serious deadly problems where their digestive tract can just shut down.

Many rabbit savvy experts and vets are leaning towards no pellets.  And wean their bunnies off pellets and feed only greens, hay and tiny amounts of fruit (fruit can be high in sugar)

EDITED TO INCLUDE:  This is BinkyBunny by the way…I just always forget to sign out as admin when I am working on the site.  Rats!

 

 

Helloworld!!

[BinkyBunny]

Okay, so to everyone, I checked this out by writing this person, asking for their name and the name of their production company. I then compared what they gave me to the official listing of the company elsewhere, and then I called the company to verify. I then checked to make sure production company itself is legit Everything seems to check out. Of course, with anything on the internet, you have to use your own judgement, do you own checks and you alone are responsible for yourself when giving out information.

[Author]

Messages