What You First Need When Bringing Home Your New Bunny

Hello everyone! Thank you for taking time to read this blog. Today I am going to be discussing the topic of what you need to feed your new bunny. 

A rabbit’s diet consists of eighty to ninety percent hay. If the bunny you are adopting is from a breeder and is a baby under the age of 4 months, you will have to feed them alfalfa hay. Alfalfa hay is high in calcium and low in fiber which is what a growing bunny needs to build their bones. If the bunny you are adopting is above the age of 6 months you can feed them Timothy hay. 

When we first brought Honey home, I had first cut Timothy hay. This means that the hay is the first harvest and has lots of stalks and is quite hard to chew. It took me a couple weeks to figure out that she didn’t like this hay. I transitioned her to third cutting which is the last batch/harvest of hay and has way more leafy bits and less stalks and seed heads. You will have to just experiment with what your bunny likes. I recommend purchasing a 12 ounce sampler of first, second, and third cutting hay. 

During the age of 4 to 6 months, a bunny should be transitioning from alfalfa hay to Timothy hay. You should also start incorporating veggies into their diet. The veggies a bunny should be eating are lettuce. Yes, that’s it. Only lettuce. Now your bunny can eat small amounts of spinach, kale, carrot tops, and celery leaves, but their main leaf should be lettuce. Try to avoid iceberg lettuce as it just has a high amount of water and does not provide any nutrition. 

Moving on to pellets which is the last part of a rabbit’s diet. A rabbit does not need to have pellets in their diet, and many bunny parents only feed a tablespoon a day, but pellets are something most bunnies adore and if they also do have the extra nutrients a bunny needs if fed in small quantities suitable for the bunnies body size. The standard measurement for body weight to pellets in tablespoons is for every three pounds of rabbit 2 tablespoons of pellets. For Honey I feed her about ¾ tablespoon to 1 tablespoon of pellets during breakfast along with 12 – 14 baby spring mix leaves. I feed her the same thing for dinner. 

That is all I have to say for a bunnies diet and I hope this was helpful. Please remember that I am not a vet or nutrition specialist and all this information is from what I have learned over my time having Honey. Thank you again and see you in the next one!!!