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Advice & welfare

Fresh foods for Rabbits

Provide a variety of different types of vegetables and fruits daily.

Provide your rabbit with a variety of different types of vegetables daily. A list showing which vegetables are safe for rabbits is detailed below.

Each rabbit should have no more than two cups of vegetables per day. Wash herbs and leafy greens before giving them to your pet.

Fruits are high in sugars, so these should be avoided.

Root vegetables such as carrots or radishes, or pumpkin and leafy greens such as spinach, kale, and silverbeet are safe to feed in sparse amounts.

Branches help prevent overgrown teeth but check which are safe to be given to rabbits:

  • Willow, spruce, ash (tree), maple (sugar and silver), juniper, poplar, apple, pear, hawthorn, hazel and citrus trees are all safe branches for rabbits to chew on.
  • Always provide these in moderation. Too much can be unhealthy.
  • Steer clear of branches with stone fruit as these are toxic (e.g. apricot, plums, cherries, peach, nectarines)

Safe Greens

  • Alfalfa (fresh)
  • Artichoke
  • Asparagus
  • Beetroot
  • Beets & leaves
  • Capsicum
  • Carrots & leaves
  • Celeriac (celery root)
  • Celery (cut to 1” pieces)
  • Chicory
  • Endive
  • Fennel
  • Garden pea pods
  • Goutweed
  • Green beans
  • Okra
  • Parsley root
  • Peas + leaves & pods
  • Pumpkin
  • Radish tops
  • Rocket
  • Rucola
  • Spinach
  • Spring greens
  • Squash/zucchini
  • Swede
  • Watercress
  • Wheat grass

Unsafe vegetables

  • Almond
  • Avocado
  • Cabbage (too much can cause thyroid and digestive problems)
  • Chive
  • Corn cob
  • Eggplants
  • Garlic
  • Kumara plants
  • Legumes
  • Lettuce
  • Nuts of all kind
  • Mushrooms
  • Mustard plant root
  • Onion
  • Potato plants
  • Potatoes
  • Rhubarb leaves
  • Shallot
  • Spring onion
  • Swede leaves
  • Tomato leaves & vines
  • Tulip
  • Wild carrots
  • Wild cucumbers
  • Wild parsnip
  • Wild peas

Don’t forget to also always provide your rabbits access to fresh, clean drinking water from a water bottle or bowl. The water should be replaced daily and checked regularly in cold weather to ensure that the water has not frozen.

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