Pumpkin Flax Oatmeal rabbit cookies

So...I'll type with the whole story. Since my husbands watching a really boring movie, and I have NOTHING else to do on a Friday night.


Mucky's been off her pellets for almost 3 weeks now, and she's due to popple in 3 days. :shock: She's big too. Like a rabbit who swallowed a cantaloupe. I can feel the kits wiggling.
There's no doubt, this time, she's full of babies.
If you guys remember, it's not the first time I've been forced to put together a natural diet for one of the velveteens. I don't know if it's a pellet issue, a metabolism issue, or ??? (help me out here guys?).

When it comes to anything but pellets, they seem to have iron stomachs.

So for the last few weeks she's been living off oatmeal, alfalfa cubes, hay, a little veggies like carrot slices, willow branches and a whole lot of lawn and herb garden trimmings.

I've been babying her through this trying to prevent wool block (she's molting terribly). I've also been giving her oxbow papaya plus enzyme tablets, 2/ day, which she eats willingly. Her droppings have gotten a little smaller and have stayed that way for almost 2 weeks. I've been worried. Especially getting into late pregnancy. Last thing I want is to loose my house rabbit to ketosis.

From this website http://www.merckmanuals.com/vet/exotic_ ... bbits.html

Ketosis

(Pregnancy toxemia)

Ketosis is a rare disorder that may result in death of does at or 1–2 days before kindling. The disease is more common in first-litter does. Predisposing factors include obesity and lack of exercise. The probable cause is starvation. For some reason not well understood, there is anorexia. Other signs are dullness of eyes, sluggishness, respiratory distress, prostration, and death. The most significant lesions are fatty liver and kidneys. The body mobilizes fat and transports it to the liver to be broken down for energy, thus the fatty liver. Diagnosis depends on clinical signs and necropsy lesions. Injection of fluids that contain glucose may be helpful in correcting the disease. Breeding junior does early, before they become too fat, is also helpful. Hairballs in the stomach are often a factor in ketosis.

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That site doesn't mention that sometimes the does can also die a few days after giving birth. And I don't believe it's all that rare anymore. With modern pellets fattening up our does, and a tendency for non-intensive breeding.

I've been paying attention, there are a LOT of posts on here from people asking why their does won't eat. It might be the hairball in the stomach causing them to go off feed, it might be that sluggish gut motility causes a hairball to form. Whatever the cause, it's potentially deadly.

Treating for wool black along with treating for stasis are probably good moves if you think you might have a high risk doe. And I do. She's 1 1/2 years old, she's molting, she's not eating enough to have big poops, and this will only be her second litter.

I canned any old cheap after-season pumpkin instead of pie pumpkin for the rabbits. (I followed the instructions that came with my pressure canner, and I haven't quite figured out how this mushy watery stuff might be human food, unless you like pumpkin soup ) The rabbits don't usually like the texture either, and won't eat it when I offer it.
It's definitely lower sugar and higher water than commercial canned pumpkin. Maybe it's not as tasty?


I wanted to add it to Mucky's diet. Because I felt it would be good for her. Getting a doe to eat willingly is always better than syringe feeding.

So I thought, maybe she'd take a cookie? She likes cookies. So I came up with a recipe. I don't know if anyone else makes anything like this, so I thought I'd make a post on it.

Ingredients:

Canned pumpkin, (drained if it's all watery like mine)
old fashioned oatmeal
2 teaspoons ground flaxseed
a few black oil sunflower seeds for garnish.
A sprinkle of ground anise (for digestion, and to make it smell tempting)

(and for staving off ketosis for Mucky I added a bit of light corn syrup, for additional glucose)

I oiled the cookie sheet with a light coat of sunflower oil.
Mixed the pumpkin and oatmeal at about a 50-50 ratio and added the ground flax and powdered anise.
Let it sit long enough for the dry ingredients to swell and absorb the water. (10 minutes?)

Spooned it onto a cookie sheet. Let the kids decorate the bunny cookies with the black oil sunflower seeds.

Baked at 400 for...15 minutes. Probably. Or maybe longer. :hmm:

I gave a cookie to all the bunnies, since they didn't have any unsafe ingredients. Mucky liked them.
Out of all the rabbits, only one junior doe here has refused to eat hers. Perhaps with time I could get them all eating them. It might even be a good addition to the pellet free diet I'm trying to put together.

What do you guys think?
Concerns or unforeseen hazards? How often or how much of something like this do you suppose a rabbit could safely eat?

Could kits have them if their mothers were already eating them?

And a cup of tea??? Lucky bunny!

I don't see any problems with the ingredients, so why not give it a try? Best of luck with the upcoming litter, keep us posted!

Looks good to me

I been planning on putting up some pumpkins this year also.
I have pie pumpkins out front for decoration and I always
like to get double duty out of them. So animal feed is the next step.
I do have some pumpkin frozen in the freezer from last year.

I want to make cookies or something for the rabbits. Pumpkin would
be the main ingredient. I am going to have to can some up as not much
room in the freezer to spare. When you drain the water off your canned
pumpkins, set it aside and give it to the adult chickens in a bowl. Or use it for
the cooking water and put it into big pot and make mush for the chickens.
Just put leftovers, vegtable peelings, etc into a big pot and let it cook.
Depending on what I have here, I may mix some dry ingrediants in after
the cooking is over. Maybe leftover bread, stale crackers, oatmeal, etc.
It can get interesting cooking for critters

My entire rabbitry has been without pellets since end of July this year.
I feed lots of hay, and some whole grains. My lop Molly would be the house
pet if I was allowed to keep one in the house. She does get extra treats

Only thing I see is you have a huge calcium problem. Oatmeal is over 200 phosphorous and under 100 calcium. Pumpkin is a little better but it's very low numbers do not contribute much. The calcium needs to be balanced some how. I'm not even saying reach the normal point of supplementing pregnant does. Just at least make a 2:1 ca.

akane":18us4h2u said:

Only thing I see is you have a huge calcium problem. Oatmeal is over 200 phosphorous and under 100 calcium. Pumpkin is a little better but it's very low numbers do not contribute much. The calcium needs to be balanced some how. I'm not even saying reach the normal point of supplementing pregnant does. Just at least make a 2:1 ca.

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She nibbling alfalfa cubes and eating lots of other greens like dandelion. (getting calcium from other sources)

I could add some of either to the cookies to make them a more balanced food for late pregnancy. :hmm:

Eggshell contains no animal protein or fat. They are purely minerals and nearly all calcium. I'm not sure how fine you'd have grind them for rabbits. For dogs and gliders they have to be close to powder to absorb it all. I throw it in my magic bullet. Without running numbers I would guess 1 teaspoon per pound of food. It should not effect the cooking or end result. That's the easiest, cost free solution to calcium issues in a food mix.

akane":201myh9u said:

Eggshell contains no animal protein or fat. They are purely minerals and nearly all calcium. I'm not sure how fine you'd have grind them for rabbits. For dogs and gliders they have to be close to powder to absorb it all. I throw it in my magic bullet. Without running numbers I would guess 1 teaspoon per pound of food. It should not effect the cooking or end result. That's the easiest, cost free solution to calcium issues in a food mix.

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You'd bake them first to kill bacteria, right?

I don't usually bake mine. I just leave them to dry. You are baking them anyway when you cook the rest and the only things I feed raw meat to can digest the bacteria. If they are fresh and need dried to crush or you want to sterilize before use you just need to get them up to 200 f until dry. Some go higher but 160f is all it takes to kill salmonella.