Best Food Brands to Feed Your Rabbit
Because of their specialized digestive system, it's important to educate yourself what to feed your house rabbit to keep them healthy. While rabbits have an impressive ability to process fiber and other nutrients, you should still be careful when feeding them to avoid causing any health implications. Thankfully, so many brands are now available, so it's possible to find the best rabbit food considering the unique rabbit needs. Here are some options to consider for anyone searching for a good rabbit food:
The Best Rabbit Food: Our Top Picks
Kaytee Supreme Kaytee Daily Rabbit Food
BEST overall
Rated by: Amber
Oxbow Garden Select Adult Rabbit Food
BEST finger brush
Rated by: Amber
Vitakraft Vitasmart Complete Nutrition
Best bristly brush
Rated by: Amber
1. Kaytee Supreme Daily Rabbit Food
Quick Summary
Rated by: Amber
Kaytee is known for producing high quality pet supplies, including rabbit food, including pellets and much more. This rabbit food is just perfect in terms of quality and price. It provides your rabbit with natural fiber, protein, oils, and a variety of other nutrients. As these are rabbit pellets, your pet is going to find it extremely easy to chew it.
This rabbit food delivers good results because of its ingredient profile, which includes corn, wheat, and oat groats. There's also alfalfa meal, which may not be the ideal addition to the list, but it still adds some nutrients to the list.
With these ingredients, your rabbit will get various vitamins, including vitamin E, vitamin B12, and vitamin D3. Overall, it offers good value for money and is a favorite choice of many rabbit owners.
PROS
CONS
2. Oxbow Garden Select Adult Rabbit Food
Quick Summary
Rated by: Amber
If you're looking for a premium rabbit food, you may want to try this option. It's nutritious and easy to feed, which is why pet owners just love it. It's available as pellets, so feeding your rabbits wouldn't be a chore. They'll like the taste and enjoy chewing.
In terms of nutrition, it performs exceptionally well, mainly because of its ingredient profile, which contains tomato, yellow pea, rosemary, and thyme. Another interesting thing is that these pellets contain grass and hay as well, which is why it will soon be a favorite of your rabbit.
Overall, Oxbow Garden is an impressive rabbit food produced in the USA, and though it's a premium quality product, it may be a bit expensive for some rabbit owners.
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CONS
3. Vitakraft Vitasmart Complete Nutrition
Quick Summary
Rated by: Amber
This is yet another interesting rabbit food choice for people who don't want to spend a lot of money on rabbit pellets. Where other foods rely on oat hay, it relies heavily on timothy grass, which is a good choice. Because of its ingredients, it's capable of delivering a solid nutritional punch containing omega3 fatty acids as well as DHA. It's high in fiber as well.
Thanks to its ingredients, it supports growth and development in your pet rabbit. As it's available in pellets, you can feed it to your rabbit with utmost ease. But, it's worth mentioning that it may not be a great choice for younger rabbits.
At the same time, the rubber is soft so that it will not damage your dog’s teeth. Being made from rubber makes the Yomerto highly durable and will ensure it has a long life span. To keep it nice and clean the toy comes with a cleaning brush.
It is available in two different sizes, depending on the size and breed of your dog.
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CONS
FAQ - A Buyer's Guide
What Foods can Kill a Rabbit?
What do rabbits eat and what they don't is important to know. Not taking special care when deciding what to feed your rabbit could cost your dearly, as some foods can prove fatal for bunnies or at the very least disrupt their digestion. Here are some foods to avoid, as they may be poisonous to rabbits and cause all sorts of health related problems.
- Yogurt Drops: Experts are of the view that feeding yogurt drops to your rabbits could prove lethal because they contribute to a toxic overgrowth of bacteria in their gut. Going for other healthy treats, such as Brussels sprouts is a much better choice.
- Bread: You may want to avoid bread as well as other high-carb sugary treats, such as cookies, pasta, and crackers. All these food options would only lead to stomach issues in rabbits. Similarly, you should make sure that you don't feed your rabbits any food that's high in sugar or artificial ingredients, as it could cause a potentially fatal condition called enterotoxemia.
- Avocado: So many pet owners believe that rabbits would always love fresh fruits and vegetables, and that's true in most cases. However, things are different for avocados, as they're a type of fatty food that your rabbit just can't process. Avoid it!
- Cereal: It's a good idea to steer clear of an processed foods because they're not a healthy food choice for rabbits. Avoid cereal like muesli, which is made of flaked maize, pellets, peas, seeds, and grains, is not a good option because it increases risk of tummy and tooth problems.
- Iceberg Lettuce: To many rabbit owners, it may be a shocking entry, as they think it's okay to give Iceberg Lettuce to their rabbits to eat. The truth is that light-colored lettuce is just not right for your rabbit's tummy, mainly because it may have been contaminated with a chemical called lactucarium. It's better to avoid iceberg lettuce also because it's most water and doesn't offer any nutritional value anyway.
- Silverbeet: Also referred to as chard, silverbeet should be avoided just like iceberg lettuce because this leafy green doesn't sit well with your rabbit's digestive system. Giving this vegetable to your bunny could increase their risk of developing problems like bloating and colic disease. Going for high-fiber fruits, instead, is always going to be the best option.
- Hamster Food: It's quite common for people to think that rabbits are small animals like hamster, so it's okay to feed the same food to both of them. Not a good idea! You need to know that hamster food is generally not rich in fiber, and without enough fiber, your rabbit just can't stay healthy and happy.
- Walnuts: Quite high in fat, it's better to avoid walnuts as rabbit food because they don't add as much fiber as you'd want to have in your rabbit's diet. Going for fresh herbs would make much more sense here.
- Oatmeal: It’s a good idea to not offer oatmeal to your rabbit, even though it's not as harmful as some other rabbit foods listed here. The reason to avoid oatmeal is that it doesn't add much to the overall nutrition a rabbit needs to survive and stay healthy.
- Chocolate: Just like dogs, it's a good idea to keep chocolate away from your beloved bunny. Never try to add chocolate in any form to your rabbit's diet because it can cause a toxic reaction and prove fatal.
- Peanut Butter: Just like walnuts, you'll be better off keeping peanut butter out of your rabbit's diet. It's very high in fat, so you're not going to do any good to your rabbit by offering this creamy snack to them. If you don't want your little pet to deal with a tummy ache, know that peanut butter is a big no-no.
Other than these rabbit foods, you may also want to avoid feeding your pet potatoes, rhubarb, and cauliflower. It's also important to remember that rabbits are herbivores, which means that there's no place for meat to be in their diet.
What Should You Feed Rabbits?
What does a rabbit eat? If you get an idea about why you need to avoid certain foods when creating a diet plan for your beloved rabbit, it'll be easier to determine what they can eat safely. Generally, you can go for most fresh fruits and veggies to maintain a balanced diet. But, whatever you pick from the safe food list, make sure to introduce your little friend slowly to it. It's better to do it over a few weeks to ensure it doesn't cause any digestive upsets. Many branded foods are available and they usually work just fine, even for rabbits with sensitive stomachs, but it's still a good idea to play it safe and ensure that your rabbit is capable of tolerating the new food.
Even for an adult rabbit, you should feed him smaller portions of a new food and wait for at least 24 hours and look for any signs of distress. If the food doesn't sit well with your adult rabbit, they're going to produce soft poo. Stop that food and wait until your rabbit gets back to normal. Then, introduce the food with something else and notice any reaction. Moreover, it's important to wash food properly before feeding your adult rabbit or else any contamination with pesticides can cause serious harm.
So, what does rabbit eat? Here are a few options to consider:
Good Quality Hay
Hay will always be the staple of your rabbit's diet. The best rabbit food will always have some form of hay, which usually makes up to 90% of their diet. They're grazing animals and require plenty of hay every day. In most cases, Timothy hay is a great choice because of healthy fiber. But, you can also use a combination of timothy hay, brome, orchard grass, and oat hay.
Timothy grass will always work, but you need to ensure that it's as fresh as possible. While going for Timothy grass, always inspect it carefully and avoid it if you notice any signs of dust or mild. Just remember, unlike Timothy hay, alfalfa hay is not a great choice, mainly because it's not a grass but a legume. You can still take it as a rabbit food and feed once in a while for a change.
Good Quality Rabbit Pellets
While grass hay is usually the more popular option, Timothy hay rabbit pellets may work too as a rabbit food. But, understand that paying attention to quality is important. If you can find good quality rabbit pellets, you can feed in small quantities to keep your bunny happy and healthy.
You can do just fine by feeding one-quarter cup of rabbit pellets to your average-sized adult rabbit. You should go for one-eighth of a cup if your rabbit weighs less than five pounds. For a pet rabbit larger than 10 pounds, sticking with a quarter of a cup will work just fine. If you're rabbit is getting alfalfa pellets, it's important to add grass hay to their diet too because it will keep the fiber content high.
Vegetables
Other than grass hay and rabbit pellets, you can also add some fresh veggies to your rabbit's diet. Make sure to check if the vegetables you pick are fresh or not, as it can hurt even adult rabbits too. You can feed certain veggies to your rabbit on a daily basis, such as Bok Choy, bell peppers, cucumber, carrot tops, escarole, radish tops, radicchio, endive, okra leaves, watercress, zucchini, clover, and more. You can choose herbs too, such as dill, cilantro, basil, rosemary, oregano, and thyme.
Keep in mind while carrots are good, you should give sparingly to your bunny. The same is true for chard, broccoli, collard greens, kale, dandelion greens, and spinach. Similarly, you can offer some foods twice a week, and some good options include banana, nectarine, melon, grapes, pear, peach, papaya, plum, pineapple, and watermelon.
The Best Rabbit Food to Buy
Whether you go for oat hay, timothy pellets, or pick branded food for adult rabbits, always pay serious attention to its quality. Raw rabbit food should be fresh, and quality matters for rabbit food pellets. If you're confused, you can try Oxbow Garden Select, as it's made in the USA and delivers high performance. Try it now!
About the Author Steven
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