Thoughts on fresh feeding/pellet free diet

I breed mini lops, and I also have one mini lop house bunny named Tofu. She isn't a massive fan of her pellets and I don't really like the ingredients, so I'm considering switching to a fresh food/pellet free diet- this would mean all her food comes straight from my garden (it's very large). It sounds excellent in practice, given that wild bunnies live on grass alone, but I'm a little hesitant about relying solely of food that's so rich and full of vitamins and minerals because of issues like bloat. I would have to carefully tailor it to her wants and needs, not too much calcium, sugar etc. Is this practical, and bunny safe? I would really appreciate and thoughts, opinions and tips

Hi,

I'm feeding mostly greens whenever available, grass (about 2/3) and all kind of safe weeds. It's what bunnys evolved for, it's perfectly safe and practical. Of course, I don't get the grow rates of pellet fed rabbits, but that's not my priority. Also, some big breeds might need some additional food.

I cant tell much about transitioning of rabbits that were on pellets/hay all their life, mine get greens from the start (except my buck which a bought with about 4-5 months, he was on hay/pellets/grains).
Another good point is that my rabbits have free run of the garden for hours, and I don't have to worry what they eat there, I removed most of the toxic plants, just to be sure.

There are some points to consider:
Transition: Do that very slowly, I would say over 2 weeks, starting with a few grass leaves now and then, and increase the amount day by day. Keep an eye on their poop, and always offer hay.
Bloat or diarrhea can happen when they get too much greens without having grown the right bacteria to digest it, and if not used to it they can eat too much at once, for most rabbits greens are mighty tasty.
Having baby bloat drops (Simethicone) at home is a good idea anyway when having rabbits.

What to feed: Everything that's safe, different stuff, and more than they can eat - once they got used to it they will pick out what they need, and spoil the rest :? (I have a BIG compost pile), not just dandelion alone because they like it sooo much.
Again, start slowly with new plants, the more diverse their food is the better. Some plants are easier to get used to, like grass, plaintain or leaves of rosea plants, others like clover should really be intruced slowly.

And, be critical about what you read on the internet, I got quite paranoid after reading too much about all those evil plants waiting out there to poison, torch and quarter my rabbits :runhills: , there are not that many plants that can kick a bunny out of its boots, if you're unsure about something, ask before feeding it.

Cookie & Co, where are you located? Would you have fresh garden produce year round? I've been raising meat rabbits (NZWxSF) for a couple years now with no pellets. But it would be hard to do on just garden greens. Ours have hay in their feeders all the time, year round. The growing kits and nursing does also get oats and wheat. All get grain in winter and BOSS when it's really cold and does after kindling until kits are out of the nest box. We do feed stuff from the garden but more of the fresh feed comes from the wild edges. We feed willow every day and a mix of grasses and weeds, quite a variety. Fall and winter we also feed roots. And in winter we grow wheat out into fodder. I'd think it would be especially easy to feed your house bunny this way if that isn't a rabbit that's being bred. Whatever you decide to do, any feed transition needs to be done slowly. And you'll find lots of helpful information about natural feed here on RT.

Pretier--those are some beautiful happy and healthy looking rabbits!

Cookie & Co., please add your location to your profile. Seems to me you are in New Zealand, but we have too many members to remember where everyone is located. So many topics concerning care of rabbits are dependent on climate and weather conditions.

Natural feeding for your bun is feasible but you would not want to rely solely - or even mostly - on garden produce. Rabbits are herbivores, not vegetarians. As Preitler already mentioned, they have evolved to eat the huge variety of weeds, tree twigs and grasses that are available--particularly the invasive European weeds that grow just about anywhere that was settled by Europeans. Grasses provide only a fraction of a good bunny diet.

This list, although far from comprehensive, will give you a good start:
safe-plants-for-rabbits-list-t55.html

I strongly recommend feeding hay as well. It is by far the best safeguard against bunny digestive disorders. I have no experience with smaller breeds of rabbits (mine were meat mutts) but I found that they needed small amounts of grain as well. This might be less necessary for a pet rabbit that is not being bred. For one rabbit alone, a bit of old-fashioned kitchen oatmeal would fill the bill. Too much grain will make for a fat rabbit. A trace mineral salt block is also needed.

There have been some very good threads started by Rainey that discuss many aspects of natural feeding. I suggest you read as many of them as you can. To find them, click on her user name to get to her profile, then scroll down to User Statistics and click on Search Users Topics.

MaggieJ":pjkzth64 said:

Natural feeding for your bun is feasible but you would not want to rely solely - or even mostly - on garden produce. Rabbits are herbivores, not vegetarians. As Preitler already mentioned, they have evolved to eat the huge variety of weeds, tree twigs and grasses that are available--particularly the invasive European weeds that grow just about anywhere that was settled by Europeans. Grasses provide only a fraction of a good bunny diet.

This list, although far from comprehensive, will give you a good start:
safe-plants-for-rabbits-list-t55.html

I strongly recommend feeding hay as well. It is by far the best safeguard against bunny digestive disorders. I have no experience with smaller breeds of rabbits (mine were meat mutts) but I found that they needed small amounts of grain as well. This might be less necessary for a pet rabbit that is not being bred. For one rabbit alone, a bit of old-fashioned kitchen oatmeal would fill the bill. Too much grain will make for a fat rabbit. A trace mineral salt block is also needed.

Click to expand...

Sorry, I should have been more specific. Tofu is a mini lop, and I definitely will not breed her, she's getting spayed sometime in the next few months.
I make sure about 80% of her diet is hay, and sticks and twigs are always be available for chewing (I use willow and apple mostly). She has a himalayan salt lick hanging in her "room", because the vet advised me not to give her any other lick/chew from the pet shop. I live in the north island of New Zealand where the temperature usually stays between 10-28 degrees Celsius, so I can grow anything year round in my green house, and anything I don't grow can be purchased from my local organic supermarket. She currently gets a bowl full of pellets each night and a couple of handfuls of veggies, she also gets put in an outdoor run for a couple of hours most days (depending on the weather). I would like to switch her bowl of pellets for a plate fruit and veggies, given twice for breakfast. My current plan is to give her something sweet as a treat every second day, like half a strawberry, blueberry or slice of banana, about a cube inch of dried flower petals like calendula and rose as they are hard to come across when they aren't in season, and the rest a mix of bunny safe vegetables and roots (e.g. fennel, parsley, parsnip, zucchini, celery, cilantro, mint, broccoli, etc).

With the grass, hay, branches, salt lick, dried flowers, fruit and vegetables, I'm wondering if that is everything she needs or whether there is something I'm missing?

__________ Mon Jun 20, 2016 6:46 pm __________

Preitler":pjkzth64 said:

There are some points to consider:
Transition: Do that very slowly, I would say over 2 weeks, starting with a few grass leaves now and then, and increase the amount day by day. Keep an eye on their poop, and always offer hay.
Bloat or diarrhea can happen when they get too much greens without having grown the right bacteria to digest it, and if not used to it they can eat too much at once, for most rabbits greens are mighty tasty.
Having baby bloat drops (Simethicone) at home is a good idea anyway when having rabbits.

Click to expand...

Thank you for the tips, they are very helpful! And your bunnies look very healthy and happy!

__________ Mon Jun 20, 2016 6:51 pm __________

Rainey":pjkzth64 said:

Cookie & Co, where are you located? Would you have fresh garden produce year round? I've been raising meat rabbits (NZWxSF) for a couple years now with no pellets. But it would be hard to do on just garden greens. Ours have hay in their feeders all the time, year round. The growing kits and nursing does also get oats and wheat. All get grain in winter and BOSS when it's really cold and does after kindling until kits are out of the nest box. We do feed stuff from the garden but more of the fresh feed comes from the wild edges. We feed willow every day and a mix of grasses and weeds, quite a variety. Fall and winter we also feed roots. And in winter we grow wheat out into fodder. I'd think it would be especially easy to feed your house bunny this way if that isn't a rabbit that's being bred. Whatever you decide to do, any feed transition needs to be done slowly. And you'll find lots of helpful information about natural feed here on RT.

Pretier--those are some beautiful happy and healthy looking rabbits!

Click to expand...

I would definitely have access to fresh produce all year round, I may have to buy it sometimes but Tofu is a very spoilt bunny so I don't mind. Sorry I should have specified, hay will be available 24/7, along with sticks and branches. I'm a little worried about feeding her oats because it's very fattening, I also feed it to my nursing does. And I agree, I would have to slowly do it over a couple of weeks or even months.

I forget which member it was, but someone recently posted about their transition away from pellets and their general thought/realization was that "slow transition" was going to mean a generation or two in their herd, not just weeks or months. Not sure if that will be the case it any and all rabbits, but it was an interesting thought.