One of the first questions that breeders worry about - how to feed rabbits, because a full-fledged diet gives them energy, provides useful substances. On the characteristics of the diet of animals depends on the attractiveness of skins for decorative rocks, rapid growth, health and fertility.
What to feed rabbits at home?
Deciding what to feed a decorative rabbit at home, you need to know that these animals are herbivores. The basis of their diet consists of food of plant origin. Some of them should be constantly used in the menu as an obligatory part (for example, hay and vegetables), while others can sometimes be present as a treat (fruit). What to feed rabbits - four basic types of feeds:
- Green - fresh feed: herbs, vegetable tops, aft cabbage.
- Rough - fodder, not containing moisture, but they have a lot of fiber. They improve digestion and create a feeling of satiety. These include hay, young branches of trees, preferably with foliage.
- Juicy - fodder, in which up to 80% moisture. This silage, melons, melons (carrots, pumpkins, potatoes, beets).
- Concentrated - they have a lot of protein and little water, there are all the nutritional elements necessary for the animal. They include fodder (except for poultry), cake, bran, cereals.
What kind of grass can you feed rabbits?
Before you feed a decorative rabbit with herbs , you need to know what sorts of it are allowed to take in food. On the green forage, the following plants are suitable for eared pets:
- alfalfa;
- clover;
- burdock;
- rape;
- plantain;
- yarrow;
- a shepherd's purse;
- blooming Sally;
- young nettles;
- dandelions;
- leek;
- garden sorrel;
- beet tops, carrots, Jerusalem artichoke, rutabaga;
- cereals and legumes - tops of peas, beans, corn, oats, barley.
Before feeding the rabbit grass, it needs to be dried a little. From the newly mown greenness in animals can inflate the stomach. Feeding pets with legumes and cereals should be mixed. It is better to dilute them with other vegetation to avoid the occurrence of meteorism in animals. Unknown greens to give food to pets in any case impossible. One does not need to regulate the same type of rabbit grass - they will start to lag behind in growth, their health may worsen. It is better to rotate the greens and prepare vegetable dues.
What to feed rabbits in the summer?
During the year, the diet of eared pets is undergoing changes. In the spring-summer period, the basis of their menu is meadow grass. Feeding rabbits in the summer:
- All of the aforementioned grasses will become the most delicious treat for the pet;
- It will be nice to please the animals with branches of garden bushes - raspberries, currants;
- It is useful to put them in the troughs leafy shoots of oak, maple, birch, willow, elm;
- Much of the summer portion should be vegetables - carrots, beets, potatoes, their cleaning. Willingly rabbits eat pumpkin, cucumber;
- To provide animals with protein in a separate bowl, they need to put the grain:
- oats - soak in advance for 20 hours;
- barley - also soak or roast in the oven;
- corn - it is better to crush it beforehand;
- wheat - young individuals are given in small quantities to avoid indigestion.
In the usual state, one adult in summer in a day requires:
- green fodder - 600-700 gr;
- coarse and concentrated - 30 g;
- salt - 1 gr.
What to feed rabbits in the winter?
Deciding what to feed rabbits in the cold season, we must know that the basis of their winter diet is a rough and concentrated food. During this period, the animals need more energy to maintain optimal body temperature. Crawl in winter fatten, they should be good to gain weight. Therefore, the food should contain a lot of fiber and protein, easy to digest and provide the animals with a powerful growth. Than you can feed rabbits in winter:
- hay;
- harvested from summer branches;
- mixed feed;
- oats;
- crushed grain of cereals;
- In addition, it is advisable to make a hodgepodge of boiled potatoes and vegetables with the addition of bran;
- to provide animals in the winter months with vitamins and minerals, they can be fed with fresh lapnik oil, pine, juniper;
- a good additive will be bone meal, chalk.
In the usual state, one adult in winter in a day requires:
- juicy food - 150-200 gr;
- hay - 120-150 g;
- coarse and concentrated - 40 g;
- salt - 1 gr.
Can I feed rabbits with bread?
Deciding what to feed rabbits, you can pay attention to ordinary bread - any: black, white, with bran. Average calculation - 10 grams of product per 1 kg of animal weight per day. But the feeding of rabbits is made exclusively by breadcrumbs, fresh pulp causes blockage of the intestine. Bakery products must be cut into pieces 1-1.5 cm and dried in the open air. Different types of products can be mixed, like rabbits and oatmeal cookies. Moldy crackers can not be given, otherwise the animals will have colic, so it is important to make sure that the pieces in the cage do not roll anywhere.
Can I feed rabbits with watermelon crusts?
At the end of the summer, you can treat your pets with watermelon crusts. They are useful - rich in vitamin B and E, carotene, ascorbic acid. You need to know how to properly feed rabbits with watermelons. After a wet face of an animal instantly becomes dirty and attracts harmful insects. Therefore, with watermelon you need to remove bones and flesh, leaving it only for a couple of centimeters, cut into pieces and put the crusts in a cage. Pet will be happy to chew them and not wet his face. Give this pet treat once a week. Watermelon crusts can be dried and used for fattening in winter.
Can I feed rabbits with wheat?
Deciding how best to feed rabbits, you need to make a diverse diet for them. Saturated with protein, proteins, carbohydrates, wheat is nutritious and useful for animals, it serves as a good addition to the menu in winter and summer. To give wheat in the form of an independent food it is impossible - it contains a lot of gluten and will cause flatulence. It is better to include it in the composition of grain mixtures in proportion to 30% or add to a wet mash of vegetables. Wheat can be fed to rabbits in raw, steamed, sprouted, in the form of bran. The seeds must be ground and mixed thoroughly with the other ingredients.
Can I feed rabbits with apples?
Feeding rabbits at home with apples is allowed. They are one of the varieties of a juicy diet and the animals are useful. Fruits are used in late summer or fall, cut into pieces and given to pets. To introduce apples in the diet should be a little - at first on a small piece, then you can increase the volume. Fruits can be given every other day, alternating with other juicy ingredients, combined with grass. I like rabbits and cake, left after making juice. With winter store apples it is better to cut the crust, it can be processed with compounds for long-term storage.
Can I feed the rabbits with a quinoa?
When asked which grass to feed rabbits in the summer, many breeders advise using a swan. This herb grows everywhere and is saturated with vegetable protein, iron salts, calcium, vitamin C and PP. To give the quinoa to eared pets it is possible in proportion not more than 15% of the total green diet, mixed with other vegetation. Grass should be collected away from roads and industrial plants, preferring not flowering, young juicy shoot. Shoots must be washed, dried for four hours, given initially metered, watching the reaction of the animal's body.
Can I feed rabbits with courgettes?
Give the rabbit food Zucchini can, because vegetables help to vary their portion and fill it with different vitamins and mineral elements. Use greens are better immature and moist. Before feeding domestic rabbits with courgettes, they need to be cut into pieces. In later vegetables, it is better to peel the crust and remove the seeds. Completely to translate pets on a zucchini menu it is not necessary - zelenots are better for mixing with other juicy vegetables, the norm of which per day should not exceed 200 grams per one individual.
Can I feed the rabbits with dill?
Spicy greenery from the garden has a number of useful properties - dill is saturated with vitamins A, C, B2, B6, calcium, iron, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium. Rich in nutritional ingredients and parsley. So the question is whether to feed the rabbits with dill the answer is simple - it is necessary. It is better to give the fragrant greens to the withered, mixed with another herb, for example, with a botanical radish, carrots, nettles, dandelions. But dill is rich in essential oils, so it should not prevail in the trough. That the animal does not have an upset stomach, give spices to food should be moderately.
What to feed the little rabbits?
The question is how to feed newborn rabbits is very important, because with the wrong diet you can lose the litter. The scheme of nutrition of babies is as follows:
- up to 2-3 weeks exclusively mother's milk;
- 3-4 weeks - milk and a little mixed fodder with hay;
- 4-8 weeks - breastfeeding and increased supplementary dose.
Young plants are planted at the age from a month to 45 days. At this time, their stomach is poorly developed, food should be easily absorbed and nutritious. Good for kids:
- vitamin hay of legumes and cereals;
- young grass under the grass (chicory, yarrow, chamomile);
- oats;
- bran;
- You can give the kids bone and fish flour;
- Sour milk is good for the intestines.
After jigging, you must feed the same ingredients as before. New types of food are best introduced gradually, in small portions. The critical time after jigging is the first couple of weeks. At this stage, a case often occurs due to stress or failure of digestion. The drinker can pour vitamin B - 50 ml / l to relieve nervous tension. From 12 weeks in the diet of young animals are gradually introduced vegetables. After a critical period, you can use any feed.
How many times a day to feed rabbits?
Deciding how many times a day you need to feed rabbits, you need to know the characteristics of their digestive system. The stomach of eared pupils has weak muscles and should be constantly filled with food and a sufficient amount of water. From it, food advances into the small intestine, where it is split into amino acids and sugars. This explains the frequent approach of the rabbits to the trough - on the day they make 30-60 meals in small portions.
Feeding animals must be diverse, fresh water should always be in the water bowl. It is poured into concentrated vitamins - A, D, especially needed by animals at the end of winter. More than 60% of the food they eat at night, so in the evening the feeders must be filled. Feeding regimen - for adults, the daily measure of food should be divided 2-3 times, for rabbits and young animals - increased nutrition 4 times.
What can not feed rabbits?
Before feeding home rabbits, it is important to make sure that the food for them is safe. Collecting grass for the animals, we must look closely, so that dangerous plants do not enter it. They can conceal poison in themselves, which will kill the animal. What kind of grass can not feed rabbits :
- dope;
- buttercups;
- hellebore;
- celandine;
- lumbago;
- milestone poisonous;
- tobacco;
- belladonna;
- spurge;
- larkspur;
- black-rooted.
There are several other products that must be excluded from the portion:
- wild herbs;
- sweet biscuits;
- branches of wild trees;
- vegetables with mold;
- table beet;
- red cabbage;
- moldy or rotten grass;
- frozen or dirty roots;
- moldy silage.