Got a baby bunny! Feeding greens?

[yankee'n'moxie]

There are two ways that young rabbits develop the ability for their gut to digest food.

One way is, they get certain gut flora from eating bits of their mother's droppings as they are exploring their area and putting a bit of everything in their mouths. In that way they develop the ability to digest anything that mom is accustomed to eating - the gut flora is passed from mother to offspring.
The other way is with age - they simply get a stronger digestive system that can handle "unknown" types of food ad learn to digest it even without having the gut flora in their systems already. The best estimates are that the average rabbit's digestive system can handle "new" things around 4 months of age. If you feed new things before the digestive system can handle it, the rabbit will get diarrhea - and diarrhea in a young rabbit can kill it.

So, if you know what mom ate, then the kits can have whatever is on that list. Pellets are the most common, hay or grass is probably the second most common. If mom had apples or lettuce or other things, then the kits can have those specific things too at any age. Hold off on giving anything that mom did not eat, because the kit's system won't be able to handle it.

Of course, most people don't have access to the list of things that the mom rabbit has eaten - and that's when we owners have to be cautious. It's better to wait, and then feed special foods in tiny amounts to be sure the rabbit can digest them - it's far better to do that than feed them something extra that gives them diarrhea and brings them close to death.

So - that's your primer lesson on why one person's kits can eat "everything" as soon as they come out of the nestbox and why one person's kits can't.

Thank you so much! That is very helpful info! I am just getting started with my bunny and I love absorbing info... Thanks again!

 

[bunnylovincowgirl]

Excellent post, DianeS! Thanks for the info.

One time I offered a doe a carrot while she had 3-4 week-old babies and she turned her nose up at it. Those babies would not touch a carrot their whole lives.