Pet Habitat South Africa

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23 Jul 2014

Meeting The Needs Of Rabbits

Posted By : Guest

Filed Under : Nutrition | Rabbits | Rabbit Food

Are you providing everything your rabbits need to be happy and healthy and live a long life? You may think you are, but do you know for sure? Your rabbits may have a lovely big hutch to live in, and spend their days in a large run with lots of space to exercise and explore, but what about rabbit food? Are your rabbits getting all the right nutrients in their meals? If you simply feed your rabbits a supermarket dry rabbit food mix, you could be neglecting to give your them everything they need. Supermarket mixes may well be deficient in fibre which is vital for rabbits and other small mammals.

Rabbits need a lot of fibre in their diet to keep them healthy. You may be surprised at exactly how much fibre they do need. Hay is a good source of fibre, but did you know that you should be feeding a pile of hay to your rabbit, roughly the same size as his body – each day? If your rabbit consumes this much hay, he isn’t over eating, so you shouldn’t cut down on his hay.

As well as being a brilliant source of fibre, hay is also great for your rabbits teeth. Rabbits are notorious for having overgrown teeth. Unlike humans, rabbits have teeth that continually grow, and unless they wear them down chewing their food, this can cause problems and result in discomfort for your pet and costly vets visits too. You may think a crunchy food would be better for wearing down a rabbit’s teeth, but in actual fact hay is much better for helping to keep their teeth short. This is because when a rabbit eats a dry food mix, he chews with an up and down motion. This does not wear teeth down evenly. However when he chews hay, he chews it from side to side, wearing down the teeth smoothly and evenly.

Another way to help your rabbit get their recommended intake of fibre is to choose a good quality high fibre dry food, in addition to the hay. Picking a good rabbit food brings plenty of benefits. It will contain lots of fibre to keep him fit and healthy, and will be fortified with extra vitamins and minerals so you can be sure your pet is getting the very best and you’re fulfilling all his dietary requirements. You’ll also find that your rabbit will enjoy a good quality food much more, and is less likely to leave parts of it which is a waste of money and makes cleaning the hutch more of a chore. A good quality rabbit food is also less likely to contain artificial additives that can cause allergies in some rabbits.

Of course don’t forget your rabbit needs constant access to fresh water, and giving him fresh greens to eat will provide yet another good source of fibre and he’ll really enjoy the fresh food too!