corn and cabbage, etc

[justfine505]

I have a bunch of rabbit sick right now and I'm worried I've been feeding them the wrong things. We feed them pellets, but I also throw in scraps from the kitchen like corn on the cob (with raw corn still on it), cabbage, lots of nasturtium, arugula and kale. The older breeders are fine, but the 6 week old litter are all starting to get sick one by one. Half the litter is sick now.

I was feeding them mostly foraged brush and brambles and trees along with the pellets but got lazy. I thought that since I'd seen corn in their feed it would be ok...

I have heard mixed things about feeding them cabbage...

 

[Frosted Rabbits]

Small amounts of corn on the cob would be okay-- realize, though, that the corn WE eat is very high in sugar. I would stay away from feeding any cabbage family greens until the animal was fully mature and used to a wide variety of greens, do not feed to pregnant or lactating does--
get those babies onto some good timothy or other grass hay, get some water with electrolytes into them. My vet said never touse gatorade because of the sugar content-- but it saved a couple rabbits with GI Stasis-- I would not want to be helping create a diarrhea situation, though-- I do not know what the sugar levels are in Pedialyte, but powdered electrolytes can be purhcased for at farm supply stores that are used on horses and cows-- perfectly fine for the buns..

 

[ottersatin]

Justfine505,
I would not feed all of those additives to your feed,
that is just asking for trouble. When you see cracked
corn in the feed there is such a limited amount that
it is not problematic. The Key is:
Everything in moderation, moderation is the key.
Anytime a rabbit is having digestive problems
it is most often linked to something in the feed.
I would stick with the basics once you get the problem cleared up.
A good quality pelleted rabbit feed, grass-hay and water.
Ottersatin. ldtimer:

 

[MaggieJ]

While your young rabbits are sick, just give them grass hay (timothy is good), water and kitchen oatmeal. Once they get back to normal, gradually reintroduce the pellets. It sounds as though you may not have had rabbits for very long. Even though I feed my rabbits a natural diet, I don't recommend you try this until you have more experience. You need to read and read and learn about plants if you want to go this route. Just feeding them whatever comes to hand is asking for problems. I know I am being very blunt here and I hope I am not hurting your feelings, but the health and well-being of your rabbits is at stake. Don't take chances with them.

 

[mommaebear]

I've been doing alot of feed research lately. I found one resource that claimed a bit of the confusion about corn had been a missunderstanding on information published by the author(I can't remember who right now I've been reading so much). Anyways the author was contacted to clarify. She said that the issue with corn aside from broken kernals haboring growth of bacteria and spores, whole intact kernals are better, the issue with the skin of the kernal. When the kernals are fresh it is easy to swollow larger bites and the skin can not be properly digested because there is not enough surface area. The skins disrupt the movement of the GI tract and can cause impactions and then the bunny can go down hill from there. With dried corn the skin is ground well by the teeth into much smaller peices and do not pose a problem. SO dried corn is the way to go. I know I've been able to dry corn right on the cob then feed it as an exciting treat because it rolls more as they eat it.

 

[akane]

The corn we eat is not the corn included in feed. They might as well be considered different species. Sweet corn is high in sugar and water making it more likely to cause digestive upset. Field/feed/dent corn is a rock hard, very dry, lower sugar item. Personally I prefer a feed without corn but do give sweet corn cobs as treats after cutting them in to smaller slices. Cabbage promotes gas production which can increase the odds of bloat and slow down the digestive tract.

One other thing is that you must remain consistent. You can't go 2 weeks without feeding them fresh foods and then suddenly give them a bunch. Their digestive tract will nto handle the change.

 

[MaggieJ]

I agree with you, Akane. I find my rabbits don't like corn... Occasionally there are a few kernels in with the wheat and they just leave them in the crock. They do enjoy a small piece of fresh, sweet corn cob, but that is a rare treat. I usually give it to the chickens.

I do feed cabbage sometimes in winter, but I am very, very careful to phase it in with just tiny amounts in the late fall, as the weeds are declining. I've never had any problems with it, but the amounts are small and my rabbits are all raised on a very green diet. Cabbage is gassy, but it contains lots of nutrients and is useful in winter if managed carefully.

 

[trinityoaks]

For my part, I figure "better safe than sorry". I don't worry about the occasional corn kernel showing up in one of my other grains, but I won't feed anything from the cabbage family to my rabbits.

In any case, as the others said, whenever you introduce new foods to rabbits (even a different brand of pellets), ALWAYS do it gradually, ESPECIALLY with young rabbits.

 

[sommrluv]

My buns get whole grains and occasionally organic scratch mixed in with their food. They seem to LOVE the barley and oats and wheat. They eat the corn but it's on the lower end of the ratio in there.

 

[Mosherd1]

I have access to a bunch of "cow corn" or "silage" depending on what you want to call it. Is that suitable to feed to rabbits occasionally?

 

[MaggieJ]

I'd have thought it wasn't a good idea, but decided to google silage for rabbits before answering. Apparently quite a lot of work has been done on this topic! Here is one of the studies that came up, but do google the search terms for yourself. Please, please be very sure of what you are doing before attempting to feed your rabbits on silage.

http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=s ... RA&cad=rja

 

[kotapony]

Funnily enough I was about to ask the same question on silage. I spent some time yesterday googling and reading different articles. I have trouble understanding all the different references to nutrition. I thought this article was really good:

http://www.sciencepub.net/report/report0209/10_3726report0209_68_74.pdf

The article compared replacing berseem hay with corn silage and the conclusion states:

In conclusion, feeding growing rabbits diet contained 40% corn silage showed the beast results concerning body weight gain, feed conversion and economic efficiency.

Although if you read the article, it looks to me like the 100% replacement was the cheapest and resulted in the most weight gain. So I need to read through it again. It's all the references to things like "DM, OM, EE and NFE" that I have no idea what they're referring to. I need to google a bit more to try and learn to understand those. We actually work with a nutritionist for our dairy herd so next time he's down I'm hoping to be organized enough to have a few abstracts printed so I can ask him about it. He may not know rabbits, but I'd think he'd be familiar with those terms as they relate to the dairy cows.

I'm nowhere near confident enough to start feeding silage to my adults yet, but I'm tempted to try my own little study and take a few kits out of the colony once they're weaned and see how they do on it. Although the other thing I'm still trying to be clear on is exactly what the complete diet was. I need to satisfy myself that, at least in theory, a diet of unlimited hay (I feed second cutting timothy/clover) and corn silage at least has the potential to provide all the nutrients they would need. If it would, it would be an awfully cheap way for me to feed the rabbits through the winter as we had a bumper crop this year and have silage coming out our ears. Even if it works, the other big factor I'm curious about is how such a diet would effect the taste of the meat.

I just found it really interesting this topic came up right when I was starting to research the same thing.

 

[MaggieJ]

Anyone who tries this... remember to phase the silage into the rabbits' diet. They cannot handle sudden changes, especially when young.

 

[curlysue]

I Avoid cabbage,i would never ever feed it too babies.I have fed kale with no problems but only too adult rabbits in small amounts.

 

[Miss M]

I dry the cobs of sweet corn after we eat it, and feed that to our rabbits as treats. When I harvested our corn, I gave some of the stalks to the rabbits. Other than that, I haven't given them corn regularly.