When purchasing an animal to keep at home, they carefully think through all aspects of its maintenance, from the arrangement of the home to visits to the veterinarian, from the possibility of walking to existing diseases and protection from them. And the main question for most owners is what to feed their domestic decorative rabbit so that it remains strong, strong and healthy.
What do rabbits eat at home?
To avoid serious mistakes in feeding your pet, you need to have a minimum set of knowledge on selecting food and creating a menu for rabbits. The diet must be balanced, complete, and contain a sufficient amount of calories, vitamins and minerals. For this purpose, it includes coarse and juicy products, grains, mixed feed, and specialized additives.
Roughage
In nature, rabbits feed on what they can easily get, including branches of trees and shrubs, leaves, and dry grass. When maintaining a house, they need to be provided with similar products, for example, hay, the same plant shoots, hard pieces of branches. This is necessary because rabbits, like all rodents, constantly grow teeth. Without constant grinding during feeding, they will grow, causing suffering to the animals and preventing them from eating normally.
Juicy natural food
This list includes fresh grass, vegetables, and silage. They supply the body with vitamins and minerals, saturate it with healthy juices, diversify the menu, and make it complete. Carrots and cabbage are considered traditional food for rabbits, but this is a misconception for people who are far from animal breeding or veterinary practice. In fact, these vegetables can be given in limited quantities because carrots contain a lot of carbohydrates, and too much cabbage will lead to bloating.
But domestic rabbits will happily eat the stems Swiss chard, celery, shoots and inflorescences of broccoli and cauliflower, kale collard greens, leaves of carrots, wild strawberries, strawberries, raspberries, romaine lettuce. From root vegetables, carrots, beets, turnips, rutabaga, and parsnips can be given in limited quantities.
Fruits and berries
Many people are of the opinion that rabbits can be fed almost anything, including fruits and berries. Indeed, these animals happily eat juicy, crisp apples, can also nibble on other fruits, and snack on sweet berries. But such products should not be the basis of the diet, because they contain a lot of carbohydrates and sugars, which can cause digestive upset in domestic rabbits.
Green Foods for Rabbits
Rabbits can be given spinach (without fanaticism, because it contains oxalic acid), kale, young shoots and greens of kitchen herbs and some spices, for example, parsley, celery, dill, coriander, rosemary, sage, thyme, mint. But all these products cannot be the basis of daily nutrition for pets, as they are additives to the basic range. It should consist of hay, grass, branches with the addition of succulent feed, leaves, fruits, and grain.
Vitamin and mineral supplements
In order for pets to be strong and healthy and live long, their food must contain many useful components. In the summer, they receive them from fresh natural food, so mineral and vitamin supplements are added to food most often in the cold season or for weakened, sick, young rabbits, pregnant and lactating females.
They are not used at every feeding, but as needed, calculating the dosage for each specific animal. It is best if the dosage of supplements is calculated by a professional.
Daily diet
The ideal food for domestic rabbits can be considered compound feed specially prepared for them.It contains essential nutrients, vitamins and minerals, and is a balanced finished product that is healthy for pets and makes life easier for pet rabbit owners. However, it can account for no more than 10% of the total food volume, as it can cause metabolic disorders. It is given once a day, supplemented with grass, hay, and succulent feed.
Although animals need to have a constant supply of food, giving it too often or without following a regular schedule is harmful. The pet must be accustomed to a routine by giving food strictly at certain hours.
This guide for beginning rabbit breeders will help you correctly calculate and build a menu:
- Basis of diet: hay – 80%.
- Concentrated feed – 10%.
- Grass, vegetables, fruits – 10%.
- Nuts, sunflower seeds, crackers, apples - occasionally and only as a reward or treat.
Rabbits should always have unlimited amounts of water. Its cleanliness must be monitored.
Not recommended and dangerous products for decorative rabbits
Domestic rabbits are prohibited from giving plants belonging to the Ranunculaceae, Aroidaceae, Umbellaceae, Solanaceae, Liliaceae, Cruciferous, Cloveaceae, and Norichaceae families. They are toxic and contain toxic substances that can not only poison animals, but also cause death.
It is necessary to limit the consumption of white cabbage, carrots, cooked potatoes, oak branches, and coniferous trees. You cannot give food from your table, especially fresh bread, pastries, sweets, fatty foods, and semi-finished products.Rabbits can happily chew on a piece of chocolate with nuts and even eat toffee, but such food can become a source of illness for them and even cause death.
How to prepare food for the winter
The basis of nutrition for ornamental rabbits, as well as those intended for industrial breeding, is high-quality hay. It can be harvested throughout the warm season, carefully choosing the types of grass. Timothy, clover, alfalfa, and nettle are ideal.
You can collect tree branches, avoiding those that are harmful or dangerous to pets in large quantities. Dried brooms will prove invaluable in winter, when it will be impossible to obtain them in nature. Coniferous branches are also harvested in small quantities. Greens contain a lot of vitamins, but an excess of essential oils and resins can harm digestion.
It is also useful to collect and dry the tops of kitchen plants and herbs. If it is possible to store root vegetables, for example, in a basement or in a cold place, a large refrigerator, it is a good idea to stock up on heads of cabbage, carrots, other healthy root vegetables, pumpkin, and apples. Using chicken eggs, you can collect the peeled shells, dry them, grind them into flour and use them as a mineral supplement.
Feed storage methods
Dry brooms and hay are stored in a ventilated, cold room with low humidity. Juicy feed is best stored in a cellar, basement or refrigerator; mixed feed is kept in ventilated boxes in dry rooms. It is important to periodically inspect your supplies to see if they are infested with mold, insects or rodents. Spoiled or contaminated food should not be used for feeding.
