Learned 2 New(to me) Rabbit Nutrition Facts Today

I was doing some nutritional research on our delightful fluff-heads today and I found
2 facts that I didn't know so I thought I'd share. Y'all may know them, but here goes:

We know that iceberg lettuce is bad for our bunnies because it causes diarrhea. Interestingly
it seems ALL lettuces have a chemical called lactucarium, which is a depressant and
is known to cause diarrhea. The darker the leaf the more the nutrients. We should limit
even the leaf lettuces.

Question to those of you that are feeding 'Spring mix' to your UK bunnies. What greens
does your Spring mix have in it there? Here in the States I know it's different. Could too
many lettuces in your Spring mix(if it has any) be the cause of the dirty bottoms?

Second fact I learned was about celery. Never feed a intact stalk to your bunny. Always
cut horizontally through the stalk ever 3cm or so. The long veins can ball up in the GI
tract and cause digestive problems.

Enjoy the lovely weather! Spring has sprung and so have the bunnies!

~holly~

With celery too, I only learnt this a few weeks ago, the stringy bits can get stuck in their teeth and cause teeth problems, which is another reason why you should cut it up little.

It's fascinating once you get into it isn't it

There is a wonderful herb called celery leaf which hs all the yummy benefits of celery but none of the strings - ie is is all leaf and no stalk. I try to accquire celery plants for my buns and grow them in the garden borders as both they and the piggys like the leaves. And it puts them off the other plants.

And when we refer to greens we mean young leafy cabbages or specific long leaved non-balling cabbages. The advice not to feed any lettuce is quite well known in this country as Beatric Potter has a significant influence on our childhood reading and she noted in the tale of Peter Rabbit the soporific effect (sleepiness) lettuce had on rabbits and that it gave poorly tummies. Apart from a small amount of cabbage greens I tend to feed rocket and herbs really.

also knew about the celery,always chop it up as ive heard the stringy bits can choke the piggies,will look out for that herb Cheryl

Thanks - didn't know about the celery thing. Will tell OH as well for when she is on feeding duty.

Mine adore rocket, and if you were to see them on baby spinach... it's like crack cocaine for bunnies or something!

I've never given mine celery, simply because I ALWAYS choke on the strings and when my friend gave her guinea pig a bit, she noticed it was choking so she had to pull it out of her mouth/throat

I'm going to have to look for celery leaf.

I feed Spring greens. (Which I had never heard of til I had bunnies and even then I thought it was a mix but it isn't) It's some sort of cabbage. I generally only give them half a leaf each depending on size and then top it up with rocket and herbs.

Eek! I didn't know about the celery, will make sure it's all chopped up now. I have to say I do get confused about what cabbage is ok, so I've always just avoided it

Celery leaf can be hard to find - I am lucky as there is a herb nursery down the road from here. Most of the seed companies sell it as either celery leaf, cutting celery or Par-cel. Failing that, if you buy young celery plants and let the buns at them the chances are they will never grow big enough to get strings. The plants will cope with being very eaten and just sprout again from the base.

I would be careful feeding baby spinach gentl as it is very high in calcium which can cause sludgy bladders.

oops i never knew this and give mine celery

We had fed celery for many years Rob and if you cut it up into small pieces it's ok. Our buns love it and it's good for them.

We have never fed lettuce or tomatoes to our's and we have cut out the apple now and we have had a lot less tummy upset's since we stopped the apple. We also don't feed them those awful hard corn on the cob treats as rabbits have choked and died on the hard kernals