[CameronS]

Recent posts and off forum conversations have brought to my attention that i should perhaps be feeding rabbits twice a day  (or at set feeding times) instead of ad lib,

having had some very picky eaters i used to leave the mix down all day to encourage them to eat everything, i haven't changed out of the habit now i feed pellets. (spilllers high protein pellets)

What are people views of the feeding of rabbits,

[ballingall]

Our rabbit (though he's only a pet & lives with a guinea pig) gets fed morning and night. But in the morning he just gets fresh carrot, in the evening they get fresh mix (I make my own) and greens of some kind. Either cabbage, broccoli, or picked greens from the garden.


Beth

[Budo1]

Hi, we have numerous rabbits.
number of years ago we started by feeding a royale mix which has flower heads in etc because we wanted to give then interesting and varied diet but found we were not getting the gains we needed plus it was becoming a very expensive hobby even with cuttings and hay etc added to the diet. Rabbits by nature they are very picky and will select their favourite bits - just imagine placing a huge buffet in front of you each day... you will select the yummy bits each time. These wont necessarily be the best things.

We were forced to change to a pellet when we were unable to obtain feed one month from suppliers. This taught us a couple of big lessons. Firstly the the suddent change in diet caused digestive problems in many of the baby rabbits and we lost a good deal of stock ( most upsetting). Secondly once they had settled into the new regime they put on growth a a steady constant and we could plan our diary on projected weight outcomes so much better.

As a general rule of thumb our large rabbits are fed pellet twice a day. They are given hay continuously- always as much as they can eat. We picked up some little hey mangers from the internet but these were too small for the amount of hay i wanted to feed, ( little diy magic and i have continuous feeders now) also 2 of the kitten tried jumping up into them and caught their legs in them- most distressing. Good quality hay has all the herbage etc that they need... they look better for it, coat is silkier and all look forwad to the mangers being replenished. They get a good handful of extras - dandelion, nettle tops ( if you can save yourself from making soup etc lol), the occasional carrot or apple chopped.
the hay is the most important thing here and should be as best quality as you can obtain... they need course and long fiber to maintain a healthy digestive tract.
Water is a constant.. especially when feeding hay and pellet as moisture content of the food is at a minimum.
I will also place the occasional mineral lick in - mainly for  does who are kindling and with the buck i am keeping in breeding shape.

Does with kittens i will feed constant, as her milk is 10 x that of cows milk and will only feed as a rule twice a day she needs the calories.. a large carrot a day increases her milk.

Your stud buck should have his feed pellet reduced a little to keep him fit and lean.. hay as a constant again... you will have to gauge this on your rabbit.. an active buck will obviously need a little more. if he is over weight he will not be fit to do the job..

Supplementary to this i will also cut good sized  pieces off branches of hazel or apple tree and sit them in shed to dry for a while then place them into runs.. they love to gnaw these, it keeps teeth and digestive tract health plus gives them something to play with. Am sure they will also get a mineral benefit from this too.  It is a little noisy but lovely to watch them at play.

Just realised i have rattled on lol sorry. only to glad to help if there are more questions

[geebee]

Hi Cameron, Budo1 obviously has loads of experience & knows what he's tlking about. I went to a lecture by one of the top rabbit vet & know she says grass & hay are the 2 most important thing, I'll look out the lecture notes & get Connor to give them to you if you like?

[OhLaLa]

We feed our bunnies a mixed feed in the morning (bought in large 20kg bags for under 10e, contains grain and pellets). Then they get a good picking of greens later in the afternoon. I alternate the green mix each day but usually to hand is diff types of grass, dandelions or kale (which I grow especially for them). They get the odd apple or carrot (every few days as not sure how much they can have). I don't feed lettuce as read it was bad for their digestive system. We also have Lucerne for the horses (which we buy in 25kg bags), they like a bit of that too.

We cut our own hay, nice and sweet, but they don't seem keen to eat it unless I'm putting a new hay bed in. So they get a total clean out and a nice new bed to chomp on every 3rd day. Hay in the hay rack if they want it.

   If anyone can help - what can I feed them from the veg garden? I have a whole selection of veg that comes in for preparing at dinner time and my books just don't cover enough of the "what you can, and what you can't" (or how much/how often) feed in this respect.

[OhLaLa]

Budo1, excellent post.

I have a slice of skinnyish tree trunk that I leave in the rabbit houses but we have a large old orchard and I like the idea of popping in an extra piece of apple wood for them to nibble/play and chew on. We have an old apple tree to fell and think I'll swap them over new pieces of trunk too.

Can I ask what mineral lick you give them? Do you pop it in for a while and then take it out or just leave one in all the time? And do you let the nettles wilt first?

 

Update: Gave bunny new apple wood branch to chew. She jumped on it, carried it off, sat on it, chewed it. I think she likes it!