 Hey there, welcome to the tiny herd where we talk about everyday pet care for guinea pigs, rabbits, and other small pets so that you can keep your pet living the happiest and healthy life it can have. Today we're going to be talking about the basics of what you should be feeding your rabbits. Now diet is a very tricky subject because feeding and diet and food options should be very individualized to the specific pet. Different rabbits have different needs, different nutritional needs based on so many different things. So I did want to say right up front this is not what I think every single person should be feeding their rabbit in every situation. Keep that in mind, this is just kind of an overview, the basics of a rabbit diet if you are a new owner or if you are wanting to do research on rabbits before you get them. Animals just like humans have their own needs so there really is no one-size-fits-all diet so I just did want to make that clear before we jumped into this but let's go ahead and get started. First of course we need to talk about hay. So rabbits should have hay at all times 24-7. I know I literally just said that rabbit diets have to be individualized but this is something that's really non-negotiable in almost all situations. Rabbits need to have hay available 24-7 and it is an extremely important part of their diet. Rabbits need to be eating hay all throughout the day to keep their digestive systems moving. It also serves as a great way to constantly wear down their teeth to avoid dental issues. It provides the nutrients that they need and it also provides fiber to help like I said keep their digestive system running but also keep things moving through smoothly so that they don't get issues like hairballs. If you think about wild rabbits that you see outside they're eating grass most of the day so hay serves this purpose in pet rabbits so you want to make sure that they have good high quality hay available at all times. Really you want to provide as much hay as your rabbit will eat. Now you don't want to just feed whatever hay you can find. You do want to provide a high quality and healthy hay option. You want to provide the best quality hay that you can. It should be nice and green and leafy and it shouldn't smell weird or musty or have any other weird plants that you're not familiar with mixed in. It should also have a pretty fresh smell and it shouldn't be too dusty. I will put a link down in the description box of another video that I did talking about good quality hay and why it is important for your pets. Second Cut Timothy hay is the most recommended option for pet rabbits. They love it. It provides the correct nutrition and it's usually pretty easy to find in pet stores or in local feed stores. I do want to say unless your rabbit is under six months old you don't want to be feeding alfalfa hay because it has a little bit too much calcium and protein for adult rabbits. A lot of people are allergic to Timothy hay. Me being one of them. So there are other options if you are having issues with Timothy hay. You can also feed orchard grass or bluegrass hay as they are pretty nutritionally similar to Timothy hay but they have a little bit leafier composition. And I also wanted to say you might have to try a couple different options to find something that your rabbit likes. Some rabbits can be very picky and that can even just be between brands. I've heard of people say that they've tried five different brands of Second Cut Timothy hay until they finally found something that their rabbit will consistently eat. So if you have a picky rabbit or rabbit that seems to just not be eating a lot of hay like they should be you might just want to try a couple of different options or a couple of different companies or brands or even types of hay to see what they like. Rabbits can be some pretty finicky picky little creatures. Alright moving on from hay next up we're going to talk about pellets. Now not everyone chooses to feed their rabbit pellets. There's been a lot of recent research that kind of shows that commercial pellets for rabbits are not necessarily the healthiest thing for them. But I would say a lot of pet owners do feed them so you can do some research and that choice is really up to you. However if you are feeding pellets you want to make sure that they are high quality and healthy for your pet. If you do want to feed your rabbit pellets be aware that the type of pellets you need to feed is going to depend on their age. So kind of like the alfalfa hay. Rabbits six months old or younger are going to need to be fed alfalfa based hay. These are usually marketed as young rabbit pellets and then rabbit six months or older should be fed Timothy based hay and again these are marketed as adult rabbit pellets. You want to choose a pellet that has good quality healthy ingredients. A couple of the top brands that a lot of people feed right now are Oxbow adult rabbit pellets, Sherwood pet health adult rabbit pellets, generally the Timothy based ones, and the small pet select rabbit pellets. I will link a couple of those down below if you want to check them out for yourself and check out the ingredients. You do also want to limit the amount of pellets that you are feeding. I will also link an article from the House Rabbit Society but in general it is about a quarter cup of pellets for a five to seven pound rabbit. That's kind of a rough estimation. Some people choose to feed a lot less than that but in general you'd really just don't want to be giving your pellets available at all times. Just letting your rabbit eat pellets whenever it wants can cause a whole lot of health issues not to mention make your rabbit fat. So again I'll link that article down below so you can get the specifics but for my own rabbits who are about five to six pounds each I feed them each one quarter cup of pellets a day. Fresh veggies are another super important part of a rabbit's diet. They should be fed every day and you should try to provide the best variety that you can. There are quite a few different safe veggie options for your rabbits all with kind of their own nutritional value so providing a variety can provide some enrichment and variety for them as well as rotate the nutrients that they're getting to give them a little bit more well rounded of a diet. I will link a chart down below that shows some great veggie options and shows you what is safe and what is not. The main staple veggies that I feed my rabbits every day are green leaf lettuce, cilantro and bok choy. And then I also rotate in kale on a regular basis. There also are a lot of herbs that my bunnies like as well so I try to give them a good variety so that they're not eating the same exact thing every single day. Again providing variety is great because it keeps things interesting and rotates those nutrients. The House Rabbit Society recommends feeding one cup of veggies per two pounds of rabbit so since again I have a little bit larger bunnies I end up feeding quite a bit of veggies every day. This is something I did want to bring up because it's something that not a lot of people think about when getting pet rabbits. This can be one of the biggest costs of keeping pet rabbits. We get veggies multiple times a week which we do also have six skinny pigs so that adds up to the cost but feeding two six pound rabbits you can calculate how many cups of veggies that is and that can add up pretty quickly especially when you are trying to mix in that variety and when veggies are out of season it can just add up pretty quickly. So keep that in mind if you are researching getting rabbits or just got some rabbits. Finally let's talk about water. Of course your rabbit should have fresh water available to them at all times. All living creatures need water so of course make sure your bunny has enough to get them through the day if you're not going to be home. I prefer feeding my water in a dish rather than a bottle just because it is more natural for the rabbit to drink and rabbits do drink quite a lot of water. So a six pound rabbit can drink as much water in a day as a 20 pound dog so I really like to make it easily accessible and give it in a way that's going to keep it as clean as possible. I personally feed water in a gravity water dish meant for like a dog and it holds a gallon of water which usually gets my bunnies through about two or three days before it gets low and I refresh it. So that can be a great option because it also keeps your rabbit from flipping the bowl. Whatever method you choose to use just make sure that it stays clean your rabbit can't run out and it's available to them in an easy way at all times. So I hope you found today's video helpful if you are doing research on what you should feed your rabbit. Again this was just a good basic overview but be sure to talk with your vets and individualize your rabbit's diet for its own needs. But if you guys enjoyed this video please consider hitting that like button and subscribe to my channel. I put up new videos every Friday but again I hope you guys enjoyed. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you in the next one. Bye.