Healthy Rabbit Diet

Feeding a healthy rabbit diet ensures that the rabbit has good intestinal health. A rabbit needs plenty to drink, a source of salt and plenty of crude long fiber. Crude long fiber helps push hair and food through the intestines. It also keeps the intestinal muscles working well enough to move food quickly through the rabbit's system. 

Hay
Rabbits should have constant access to hay. Timothy hay should be used as a staple. Alfalfa hay can be used as a treat, but it does not have all of the nutrients that Timothy hay has. The hay should be tied up to the side of the rabbit cage, so that it says dry and so that the rabbit does not end up eating its own urine. Hay provides the crude long fiber that rabbits need.

Pellets
Choose rabbit pellets that provide nutrients, minerals and vitamins that may not be found in fresh vegetables, fruits and hay. Quality pellets do not have junk such as seeds, nuts, dried fruit and other foods that make the food look appetizing to humans.

Rabbit care expert Dana Krempels, Ph.D., recommends that rabbits get only 1/8 cup of pellets per five pounds of rabbit per day. When feeding a low amount of pellets, make sure that the rabbit has constant access to hay, and be sure to add some fresh vegetables to the rabbit's bowl every day. 

Make sure the pellet you choose has at least 22% crude fiber, 14% or less of protein, 1% or less of fat and 1% of calcium. Look for pellets that are Timothy based rather than Alfalfa based.

Vegetables
Fresh vegetables should be given daily. Fresh greens have water in them and help to keep the intestinal track hydrated. Vegetables are also loaded with nutrients and fiber, and they taste good to the rabbit. Popular vegetables are leaf lettuce, broccoli, parsley, kale, carrots and carrot tops, celery, endive and escarole. Avoid iceberg lettuce, which contains very few nutrients.

Fruit contains a lot of sugar and starch, which interferes with a rabbit's ability to digest. Fruit should be given only as a rare treat.

Salt
It's a good idea to keep a salt lick in your rabbit cage. Rabbits need a small amount of sodium each day, and they grind their teeth on the salt lick, which helps to keep the teeth from growing too large.

Eating Feces?
Some rabbit owners become concerned when they see their pets eating what appears to be waste. In reality, the rabbit is simply completing the digestive process.

Rabbits move food quickly through their systems, and much of it is digested in the intestines. Rabbits produce two kinds of droppings: small, hard feces that contain undigested fiber, and softer clumps known as cecotropes. Rabbits usually eat cecotropes immediately. These droppings contain partially digested food that must pass through a rabbit's system a second time for the rabbit to draw out all of the nutrients. Cecotropes are often called night droppings, because rabbits typically produce and eat them after dark.