High-quality, dust extracted feeding hay should make up 85-90% of your rabbits’ diet. You should make sure it is freely available and replaced with fresh hay every day.
Pellets
Should be fed as a supplement to feeding hay or grass to ensure your rabbits get all the minerals they need. You should look for nugget products appropriate to your rabbits’ life stage. Make sure you follow feeding guides and don’t feed too many nuggets or your rabbits may become obese.
Nature Snacks
Nature snacks can be fed in small amounts either by hand to help bonding, left in housing to keep your rabbits occupied or sprinkled through feeding hay to encourage foraging.
Should be fed as a supplement to feeding hay or grass to ensure your rabbits get all the minerals they need. You should look for nugget products appropriate to your rabbits’ life stage. Make sure you follow feeding guides and don’t feed too many nuggets or your rabbits may become obese.
Nature Snacks
Nature snacks can be fed in small amounts either by hand to help bonding, left in housing to keep your rabbits occupied or sprinkled through feeding hay to encourage foraging.
Fresh Greens
Can be fed as a treat to add variety and provide additional nutrition. Have a look at our guide to feeding greens below to find out what can be fed to your bunnies. Click the link below to download our guide to what fresh greens you can and can’t feed your rabbits.
Can be fed as a treat to add variety and provide additional nutrition. Have a look at our guide to feeding greens below to find out what can be fed to your bunnies. Click the link below to download our guide to what fresh greens you can and can’t feed your rabbits.
Daily in small handfuls
Grasses (not lawn chippings), dandelion leaves, plantain, herb robert, rose bush leaves, nasturtium, wild geranium, strawberry and raspberry leaves, hazel tree leaves and branches, willow tree leaves and branches, apple tree leaves and branches, Hawthorn, brambles, goosegrass, blackthorn, nettle (dried), cauliflower leaves, celery leaves, green pepper, kale, mint, romaine lettuce, spring greens.
Occasionally in small amounts
Apple (pipless), banana, savoy cabbage, turnip, carrot tops, swede, spinach, parsley, basil, dill, oregano, coriander.
NEVER
Apple pips, avocado, potato, potato tops, rhubarb (leaves & stalks), tomato leaves, locust pods and beans, any plant that grows from a bulb, bluebell, yew, foxglove, garlic, onion, shallots and chives, hemlock, buttercup, dock, ivy, poppy, privet, primrose, ragwort.
Hay is important
Fibre from feeding hay and fresh grass is really important for:
Dental health – Rabbits’ teeth continually grow and chewing good quality hay will help wear them down. Without this fibre they may develop dental disease
Digestive health – Fibre keeps a rabbit’s gut moving reducing the risk of gut stasis and bloat
Behavioural Health – in the wild rabbits spend 70% of their time foraging, they need access to hay and grass to be able to express their natural behaviour
Selective Feeding
When offered muesli diets rabbits are likely to select the high starch and sugary elements of the food leaving the higher fibre pieces: this is called selective feeding and results in rabbits eating an unbalanced diet.
Selective feeding can increase the risk of Dental Disease, Gut Stasis and Fly Strike.
Move Away From Muesli
If you take the challenge to move your rabbits away from muesli you should transition their diet slowly over a four week period, as depicted in our visual guide below. Make sure you don’t overfeed and increase the overall portion size over this period and make sure your rabbits have access to unlimited high-quality feeding hay.
