Rabbit diet question

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lolahhc

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Hi all,
I have two 2 year old giant bunnies. A french lop and continental giant. I’m very knowledgeable on rabbit care but I’m not sure when it comes to food.
I currently have mine on burgess excel rabbit pellets and they have a bowl a day. Now where does amounts come into this? Does anybody know amount of pellets per kilo?
So generally I would say they have their pellets for dinner and their greens in the morning.
They are out on the grass all day, I worry about them getting GI stasis as one has done before, and I don’t want them to go hungry so therefore should I give hay in the runs?

Long story short…
What do you all feed your buns and for what meal?
Tia xx
 
Generally grass hay should make up the bulk of a rabbit's diet. It should be available at all times, 24/7. It is the best thing to keep GI issues at bay. Hay is just dried grass. Fresh green grass is also good but can be rich. Rabbits that are suddenly given lots of fresh grass to eat can have tummy issues the same as having a new food introduced. If your rabbits are already getting greens every morning, the grass is additional "greens/hay." Dried grass hay is great for your rabbits. It is not possible to "overfeed" hay.

Pellets should be the smallest portion of their daily offerings. Pellets should make up less than 5% of the total they eat. It doesn't matter whether you feed the pellets in the morning or at night or split between the two times. Rabbits tend to like consistency, so it's good to keep a routine. The House Rabbit Society recommends about 3/4 cup of pellets for an 11-15 lb rabbit. That's generally the max amount. Some suggest far fewer pellets. Too many pellets can cause digestive issues because they are concentrated nutrition. Rabbits are made to eat lots and lots of low nutrition foods like hay.

The RWAF in the UK recommends the following for quantities. You can see that while there may be some differences, they are still basically the same -- unlimited hay/grass, limited pellets, measured greens.
Feeding guide for an average sized rabbit of 2.5 kg
Adjust these measurements up or down according to the size of your rabbit.

*These are percentages of FOOD INTAKE, not of your rabbit’s weight*

Pellets 5%
2 egg cups per day (one am, one pm) or 50g in total

Unlimited hay
Aim to give them their own body size in fresh hay every day, or access to fresh grass to graze

Greens 10% 100g
This does not include carrots which should be a treat.
 
When I had a group of rabbits, they always had a medium coarse grass hay, refreshed twice a day, then I fed a salad of select leafy greens and forage in the evening. They were on a pellet free diet due to one rabbit having megacolon and being intolerant of sugars/high carb foods like pellets. The times that I did feed pellets, it was always just a minimal amount(less than the usual recommended amount), as a supplement to their hay.

If the fresh grass your rabbits eat, isn't a more mature long grass, maybe with some hard stem starting to grow, I would suggest adding a grass hay that is at least medium coarse, free fed. Reason being, in part what Blue Eyes mentioned about rabbits always needing access to hay or grass, but also soft early growth grass can be very rich and nutrient dense. It's not just grass and hay that helps a rabbits digestion, but the indigestible fiber in it. And it's the more mature growth and stalky stems that has the most indigestible fiber. Soft young early growth is more water, protein, nutrients, and digestible fiber, than indigestible fiber.

Indigestible fiber is what 'drives' the rabbits digestive system, and improves gastric motility. It increases the rabbits total output and increases the size of the fecal balls. In health terms, this keeps digestive content moving through the digestive tract effectively and helps balance digestive microflora. This is what helps prevent microflora imbalance and digestive illness from occurring, as well as helping prevent GI stasis developing due to digestive slowdown(provided the rabbit is still eating normally).

But you also can't just feed indigestible fiber and not enough nutrient rich food, or it can result in it's own set of digestive problems(eg. impacted cecum, fatty liver disease, weight loss). So it's finding the right balance of nutrient rich foods(eg. soft grass/leafy hay, pellets, veg, forage, etc) to provide the necessary nutrients for good health and good weight maintainence, with the right balance of coarse indigestible fiber for good gut motility, microflora balance, and gut health.

Instead of focusing on pellet amounts too much, I would focus primarily on the amount of grass/hay consumption. An adult pet rabbit should consume a pile of medium coarse grass/hay, at least the size of their body per day. If you have a softer grass/hay, then you'll want to find a way to balance this with adding a coarser hay as well, or feeding rabbit safe branches and leaves, and other safe forage with high amounts of indigestible fiber. As long as the hay and other forage, is a good balance of soft and coarse, the pellets are basically just an added treat and vitamin supplement to a rabbits diet, so not a lot needs to be fed usually.

https://rabbitwelfare.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/article-ROWinter10p7.pdf
Because your rabbits are used to fresh grass every day, if they aren't used to hay they may be a bit picky about what hay they'll eat. You may need to experiment with different types and brands, to find one they like and will eat well. So it's best to buy a sample size to begin with, to make sure your rabbits like it and will eat it.

As with any diet changes, it's always important to monitor your rabbits weight and body condition, to make sure no unhealthy weight loss occurs.
 
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I feed mine either Timothy hay or timothy orchard and some fresh grass. I only feed pellets as treats, in toys, or to get them back in their cage/distract them for a bit. They are not crucial to feed at all and I find they make their poop stink. A bunny free of any pellets or pet store treats doesn't have smelly poop. Soon as I give them a quarter cup of pellets, sure enough they smell the place up by the next day or 2. Of course bunnies love their pellets and they work great for enrichment so I've found that a sprinkle or 2 a day of pellets doesn't make them smell.
 

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