Hay comes first
A rabbit’s gut is built for high-fibre food. Hay — especially lucerne hay — is not an extra but the base of the diet: it stops harmful bacteria from multiplying in the gut. A diet low in fibre and high in starch is a known cause of diarrhoea.
Hay should be dry, free of mould and not dusty. Buy your winter supply in autumn and store it somewhere dry.
Grain and feed
General guidance puts a meat rabbit’s diet at roughly 15–17% protein and 14–16% crude fibre.
- Barley is a good substitute for oats in Uzbekistan.
- Bran is a useful addition, but only fresh, never sour.
- For protein, use sunflower cake or meal. Cottonseed cake and meal are cheap and sold everywhere, but the gossypol in them is poisonous to rabbits — do not use them.
- Poultry and cattle feed is wrong for rabbits: the fibre is different, and it sometimes contains coccidiostats that are dangerous to rabbits.
- Grain and hay alone make an unbalanced diet. A mix where protein and fibre are worked out properly can do as well as factory pellets.
Store grain where mould, insects and rats cannot reach it.
Greens
In Uzbek conditions, green feed can be given for more than half the year: lucerne, dandelion, plantain, clover and carrot tops. Mulberry leaves are a safe and valuable feed, and many yards already have a mulberry tree.
The rules:
- Never feed greens wet — from dew, rain or washing. Wet greens directly cause bloat and diarrhoea. Cut them once the dew has dried, or let cut greens wilt a little in the shade.
- Throw away greens that are frozen, heated up in a pile or rotting.
- Greens should never be the whole diet.
Water — always
A rabbit drinks roughly 50–150 ml of water per kilogram of body weight a day. A nursing doe drinks 2–3 times as much, and a large doe can drink more than 2 litres a day. In hot weather they need even more.
A rabbit without water can die within a day or two. And when a rabbit stops eating, the risk of its gut shutting down starts after about 12 hours. So check every drinker every day — press the nipple or look in the bowl. "The tank is full" does not mean the rabbit is drinking.
Never change feed suddenly
A rabbit’s digestion is tuned to a stable diet. A new feed, a new batch of hay, the first greens of the season — start each with small amounts and increase gradually over 5–7 days. The same rule applies to a rabbit you have just bought.
The first 20–30 days after weaning are the most dangerous time for young rabbits. Do not introduce any new kind of feed during that period.
Poisonous plants
Do not feed rabbits:
- datura (thorn apple), buttercup, and poisonous plants of the carrot family such as hemlock;
- potato and tomato leaves and stems, or green or sprouting potatoes;
- rhubarb leaves;
- ornamental flowers: tulips, daffodils, irises, lilies, peonies and others;
- apricot, cherry and plum branches and leaves — when pruning, keep them well away from the greens pile;
- cottonseed cake.
Give beet tops and spinach only in small amounts, never as a main feed.
Common beginner mistake: giving a big pile of freshly cut wet grass all at once, or switching feed in a single day. The next day the rabbits are bloated with diarrhoea. New feed goes in only a little at a time, and only dry.
