Before you buy
Holland Lop Food: What to Feed and What Not To
Hay first. Everything else is a rounding error.
A Holland Lop's diet should be roughly 80% grass hay, 10% leafy greens, 5% pellets, and 5% everything else.
Most new owners invert this. They buy a bag of rabbit food, feed it as the main meal, and treat hay as bedding. That is how you end up with an overweight four year old rabbit with molar spurs and a vet bill.
The ratio, and why it is not negotiable
A rabbit's molars grow continuously for its whole life. The only thing that grinds them down is the sideways chewing motion of eating long-strand hay. Pellets are chewed differently and do not do the job.
Take the hay away and the teeth win. Overgrown molars cut into the cheek and tongue, the rabbit stops eating because it hurts, and then you are in GI stasis, which is the thing that actually kills them.
The gut needs the fibre too. A rabbit's digestive system only works while it is moving, and hay is what keeps it moving.
Hay
| Hay | Who it is for | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Timothy | Adults, 6 months and older | The default. Available at all times, in a rack or a pile they can burrow into. |
| Orchard grass | Adults | Softer than timothy. Good if your rabbit is fussy, or if you are allergic to timothy yourself. |
| Alfalfa | Under 6 months, and nursing does | Too rich in calcium and protein for an adult. Long term it causes bladder sludge and stones. |
| Meadow, oat | Adults, as variety | Fine mixed in. Not a substitute for timothy or orchard. |
Buy it fresh and green, not brown and dusty. If it smells of nothing, the rabbit will not eat it.
Pellets
A quarter cup a day for an adult Holland Lop. That is it. They are a supplement, not a meal.
Buy a plain, high-fibre, timothy-based pellet. Look for 18% or more fibre.
Avoid anything with coloured pieces, seeds, corn, dried fruit, or little crunchy bits. That is trail mix, and it is sold to humans, not rabbits. A rabbit will pick out the sweet bits and leave the fibre, which is precisely the opposite of what you want.
Rabbits under six months can free feed pellets, alongside unlimited alfalfa hay. They are growing and they need it.
Greens
About one packed cup a day for an adult. Introduce any new green one at a time and watch the droppings for two days.
Good daily greens
- Romaine and other dark leaf lettuces
- Cilantro, parsley, basil, mint, dill
- Carrot tops
- Dandelion greens
- Bok choy
In moderation
- Kale, spinach, chard. High in oxalates and calcium, so rotate rather than feed daily.
- Broccoli and cabbage. Some rabbits get gas. Small amounts, watch what happens.
What Holland Lops cannot eat
Never feed: iceberg lettuce, potato, onion, garlic, leek, avocado, chocolate, bread, crackers, pasta, cereal, yogurt drops, nuts, seeds, or anything with sugar or dairy in it.
Avocado and chocolate are toxic. Most of the rest are simply things a rabbit's gut cannot process, and a rabbit that cannot process something goes into stasis.
What about carrots?
A treat, not a staple, whatever the cartoons taught you. Carrots are high in sugar. A small slice a few times a week is plenty.
Carrot tops, the leafy green part, are a different matter and can be fed daily. That is the part of the carrot a wild rabbit would actually eat.
Fruit
A grape. A slice of banana. A blueberry. Rarely, and small. It is sugar, and sugar upsets the gut flora that a rabbit's whole digestion depends on.
Water
A heavy ceramic bowl, not a bottle. Rabbits drink far more from a bowl, because it is how they drink naturally, and a well-hydrated rabbit is much less likely to go into stasis.
Bottles also jam without you noticing. A bowl does not.
How to change a Holland Lop's food
Slowly. Over about ten days.
Every bunny leaves here with three days of the exact pellet it is already eating. That is deliberate. An abrupt diet switch, on top of the stress of a new home, is one of the most common triggers for GI stasis in the first fortnight, and it is the single most avoidable way for a new owner's first week to go badly wrong.
| Days | Mix |
|---|---|
| 1 to 3 | Their old food only. Let them settle. |
| 4 to 6 | Three quarters old, one quarter new. |
| 7 to 9 | Half and half. |
| 10 to 12 | One quarter old, three quarters new. |
| 13 onward | New food only. |
If the droppings change shape, get smaller, or stop, go back a step and slow down.
Cecotropes: the ones they eat
Rabbits produce two kinds of droppings. The hard round ones you clean up, and soft clustered ones called cecotropes that they eat directly from themselves, usually at night.
This is normal, it is essential, and it is not a sign that anything is wrong. Cecotropes are how a rabbit gets B vitamins and protein from its food. A rabbit that stops eating them, or one leaving squashed sticky clusters around the pen, is usually being overfed on pellets or is too fat to reach.
What a healthy diet looks like from the outside
- Lots of round, dry, even droppings. This is the main thing to watch.
- Eating hay throughout the day, not just at meals.
- A waist you can feel. You should be able to feel the ribs with light pressure, not see them.
- No sticky mess around the back end.
Droppings are the dashboard. Smaller than usual, or fewer than usual, means slow down and pay attention. None at all for 12 hours is a same-day emergency. The full warning-sign list is on the care page.
Every bunny that leaves here goes with three days of its own feed and a scent blanket from the nest, so the first week is about settling in rather than surviving a diet change.
Sources
This page is written from experience breeding Holland Lops since 2020 and is not a substitute for veterinary advice. If your rabbit is unwell, call a vet who treats rabbits.