Rabbit food
What is the best quality rabbit food?
What is the best rabbit handbook?
Answers:Diet
Rabbits are herbivores this means their digestive system is meant to only eat plants, generally high fibre. Rabbits have developed a digestive system that enables them to graze a large range of highly fibrous, poorly nutritious plants while still maintaining excellent body condition. When we give them low fibre, highly nutritious foods we are predisposing them to a wide range of diseases including bacterial overload, diarrhoea and urinary tract infections.
Premixes - Many commercial diets are too high in protein, fat and energy and too low in fibre predisposing the rabbit to digestive upsets, obesity and dental disease. Where a commercial diet is fed offer only a small amount to discourage your rabbit from picking out favourite components and not eating the entire content that may lead to deficiencies.
Pellets 鈥?录 -1/2 cup per day per bunny. Pellet feed should contain 12 to 20% crude fiber and 14 to 17% crude protein and should say they are balanced and complete. If not they are likely to be lucerne based and too high in calcium.
Hay - Rabbits should have continuous access to hays such as meadow or timothy hay (available through Alfalfa King). These hays closely resemble the types of feed they would eat in the wild and tend to better for rabbits than lucerne (or alfalfa), oat or wheaten hay. Lucerne and clover hay is high in calcium, protein and calories can increase the chance of obesity as well as calcium sand. Calcium sand is a term used for the crystals of calcium that is passed out into the urine. As rabbits absorb all the calcium they ingest their urine is normally cloudy. It becomes sand when the urine contains too much calcium and crystals form. These crystals can become large enough to cause blockage of urine.