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- Jan 20, 2010
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When my husband rescued Thumper, I had to do some crash learning about rabbits. It had been years (like... 25 years) since I had Duchess, and I couldn't remember much about what to do with rabbits.
Everything I found at first talked about feeding very small amounts of alfalfa hay, IF at all. Really, rabbits should have mostly timothy hay, they said.
Also, rabbits shouldn't have corn at all. Corn is toxic to domestic rabbits.
Horrified, I started picking through the bag of food I had bought at Walmart as a temporary solution so the poor bun would have something to eat while I did my learning. I picked out all the corn and the little nuggets that looked like they were made from corn.
Granted, all the sites I learned this from were the house rabbit / pet rabbit sites.
Then I found this group of rabbit keepers (over at HT) and I've seen how y'all talk about feeding corn, and feeding lots of alfalfa. I've been wanting to ask this ever since, but never got around to it.
What's the deal about corn and alfalfa? Why do the house rabbit people go spastic about not feeding these to rabbits, while everybody on here is okay with these as feed?
Is it just that people who believe that every rabbit should be a spayed/neutered house rabbit tend to be unreasonably demanding, while those who view rabbits as multi-purpose for food, beauty, and company tend to be more reasonable?
This is a genuine question... I'm not flaming or anything, just trying to reconcile the two views and understand.
Everything I found at first talked about feeding very small amounts of alfalfa hay, IF at all. Really, rabbits should have mostly timothy hay, they said.
Also, rabbits shouldn't have corn at all. Corn is toxic to domestic rabbits.
Horrified, I started picking through the bag of food I had bought at Walmart as a temporary solution so the poor bun would have something to eat while I did my learning. I picked out all the corn and the little nuggets that looked like they were made from corn.
Granted, all the sites I learned this from were the house rabbit / pet rabbit sites.
Then I found this group of rabbit keepers (over at HT) and I've seen how y'all talk about feeding corn, and feeding lots of alfalfa. I've been wanting to ask this ever since, but never got around to it.
What's the deal about corn and alfalfa? Why do the house rabbit people go spastic about not feeding these to rabbits, while everybody on here is okay with these as feed?
Is it just that people who believe that every rabbit should be a spayed/neutered house rabbit tend to be unreasonably demanding, while those who view rabbits as multi-purpose for food, beauty, and company tend to be more reasonable?
This is a genuine question... I'm not flaming or anything, just trying to reconcile the two views and understand.