We've said goodbye to the little black & orange tri color doe to a wonderful family which has given me an idea to write down some of the treats that we commonly feed.
The main component is a 16 % or 18 % completely balanced rabbit ration. This is the only thing that a rabbit actually needs to eat to stay healthy. Since the food is a "completely balanced" food that mean that it has all the roughage, salt, minerals and everything else that a bunny needs to live a good life. When pet owners start feeding their bunnies food with the treats mixed in the common occurrence is for the bunny to start eating the "candy" treats in the feed and not the feed itself. This leads to an UNbalanced diet and often a very cubby bunny with lot's of wasted feed. The number one health problem in any pet today is obesity because people tend to think that by feeding their pet more is loving their pet more, this I can assure you is not the case. In a case study in Labs one group was fed to maintain a body condition score(BCS) of 4/9(5/9 is the ideal weight) and another group was fed to maintain a BCS of 6-7/9. The first or leaner group lived an average of 5 years longer than the heavier group with far less health problems. 5 years in a dog is a huge amount of time! Although that case study relates to our canine friend the same philosophy holds true to our rabbits as well.
The common things that we supplement with here are a good timothy hay every second or third day and everyday for the babies and other "treats" that are given maybe once a week or so. Good treats for bunnies are things like slow cooking plain oatmeal, plain cheerio's, dried bread, parsley, carrots, apples, dry pineapple and grass clippings. We tend to stay away from the fruits and any vegetables that are high in water content. These can be a great way to boost your bunnies hydration in the hot months of the year but we find that it's very easy to give them diarrhea with high water content foods so you do have to balance what you give and give it in moderation. Ideally anything you supplement your bunny with should not be over 10-15% of your rabbits totally daily food.
There's just a quick list of what I can think of off the top of my head but if there's any questions then please feel free to send me an e-mail. I have not listed all of the good treats by any means that you can give your bunny but have listed the common one's that we use. With anything that you do give though remember this, give it in moderation! Anyways we are off to get some photos of a cute little broken chestnut JR doe to post for sale! Enjoy the sunshine!
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