I am attempting to combat the 'house rabbit people" who insist that rabbits will do just fine on a diet of lettuce, celery and carrots...with a good handful of hay.

I want to make a

1. Clear statement on the fact that rabbits are herbivors.. not vegetarians (aka need more than grasses to eat)

2. state clearly why a natural diet, though good for a bunny, is more difficult to provide WELL for a house rabbit, and particularly a small colony of rabbits.

and well...anything else that can make my case.

I already know that pellets are well-balanced nutrition for rabbits, but i particularly am wanting to deal with the house rabbit.. feed them natural pellets are evil folks. I've learned I can't change the "pellets are evil" mindset, so I'm wanting to be clearer about feed natural great... but this is WHY you need to feed more than celery and carrots and lettuce.

I've rescued four rabbits in the past month that were ORANGE in colour because they were fed carrots predominately... they had abnormal livers (on the two I butchered) which says to me NOT A GOOD DIET. and they were ORANGE .... rabbits are NOT supposed to be orange!

Clear written statements even that I can copy and paste, or good reference materials would be helpful.

thanks for any help you can give.

Yeah, sounds like they need all the help you can give them!

I'll need to think on this, Ladysown, to tailor statements to your need but I'll come back and post later on.

I'm of little help since I just started along the natural feeding path, aside from suggesting as wide a variety as possible, and offering pellets as well, since the rabbits could then choose whether to eat them or not... if they are getting all they need from the forage provided they could just fore-go the pellets, no?
I have to share this; I made my own baby food for my children, and my eldest son just loved his carrots and yams, and he turned orange too! I hope I didn't do anything bad to his liver...

Good luck...I avoid such pet crazy people, period. They hate me for my opinions, theirs is right no matter what...so forget them...

House said carrots make you yellow, red foods make you pink. Put them together and you get orange. I don't think just carrots makes you orange....plus that is a treat, not a staple diet. Surprised it didn't have worse issues.

Feeding any one or three foods is a bad idea long term. We all[people and animals] need a large varied diet.

Probably not.

From http://www.livestrong.com/article/50632 ... er-damage/ , emphasis mine:


Orange rabbits, though!

For a start why do they fuss about keep the feed "natural" anyway it is't "natural" for a rabbit to be indoors its whole life, and I am no nutritionalist but I would guess that my pellet feed would make up for the vitamin D they are not getting from direct sunlight, also how do they know what a rabbit eats "naturally" (in the wild that is, as I know of farmers that have seen a rabbit kill a snake and chomp on it, and my own rabbits will take a Macdonalds burger if given a chance! I know none of this will help in your article but just letting you know others out there agree with you.

For one, those who are concerned that their rabbit isn't getting a healthy diet shouldn't be feeding celery and carrots in the first place because those aren't first-choice foods for a rabbit in nature. Various plants make up a diet for the sole reason that many different vitamins and compounds are necessary for growth, development, and maintainance. One or two foods are not sufficient for a diversified eater like a rabbit (or horse, or cow, or human).

Secondly, carrots are yummy as a treat, but so is ice cream. What would happen to your body if you had to maintain yourself on only ice cream?

This is the problem with letting kids watch Disney.

so this is what I've come up with so far.... http://athomepets.weebly.com/caring-for ... abbit.html

if anyone would care to look it over and make suggestions as to how to make it clearer, or better that would be helpful. The section is about in the middle of the page.

Carrots and apples seem to be what everyone thinks herbivores should subsist on. I've nearly given up on it since neither witty short statements nor pages worth of arguments has made any impact. The word "natural" either sends me in to fits of laughter or frustrated sighs. Natural is usually just whatever the person's particular opinion happens to be which may change monthly depending on who they have been talking to and what bottom of the barrel study gets brought to light. Often out of context.

I like what you already have, Ladysown, but I do think you might add a bit more about the importance of safe weeds and tree leaves/twigs in the rabbit's diet. It might be useful to emphasize too that if the rabbit is not getting pellets, a good alfalfa or clover content in the hay is important. Maybe a short list of easy to recognize weeds and trees? Dandelion, plantain, clover, chicory, sow thistle, prickly lettuce, apple, willow, poplar, elm etc. Feel free to use the SAFE PLANTS list if you feel it is helpful.

"Natural Feed" is always a doosey - Humans have changed the climate and landscape to such a degree, do any animals have a natural diet anymore - wild or domestic?

Oddly enough, in this part of the world the invasive non-indigenous weeds are exactly the plants that domestic rabbits need. Our domestic rabbits are descended from the European wild rabbit that has been living on these plants since the last Ice Age. Funny how it all works out!

I've seen wild cottontails munching on a fresh roadkilled cousin. Protein is scarce in Nature and few animals pass up a chance for a shot of it.
As far as keeping it natural, I'm all for it; but natural for a rabbit is not vegetables that have been altered over many generations to make them more palatable for humans. Natural for a rabbit is grass, legumes and a wide variety of wild gathered weeds.
Lettuce and celery are nothing foods. There is so little nutrition there that it's hardly worth feeding at all. Carrots suffer from the Bugs Bunny syndrome. It has to be healthy if Bugs eats it. Carrot tops are a great food but carrot roots have too much sugar for rabbits to process more than a small amount at a time. Rabbits in nature spend very little time digging up roots. Vegetation and seeds are what they go for.
Sounds like those folks need to change their definition of natural.

__________ Mon Jan 23, 2012 8:27 am __________



Very insightful. Like most of us I suppose I always considered the weeds I grew up with to be a natural part of the North American vegetation but taint necessarily so.

ey, ALL the dandelions we have in N America were introduced--and So many of the grasses that we consider to be native, are also introduced And yeah, beta carotene will even turn people kinda orange---

Not just dandelions... Sow thistle, prickly lettuce, mallow, purslane, chickweed, plantain, white clover, alfalfa, shepherd's purse, curled dock and many more all came with the Europeans. These plants are the natural foods of the European wild rabbit... which makes them perfect for gathering for our domestic rabbits.