Mini Lop Food and Diet

Hay

Unlimited, all day, a pile bigger than the rabbit. Timothy, orchard or meadow hay for adults. Alfalfa only for kits under six months, because it is too rich in calcium and protein for an adult.

Hay does two jobs nothing else does. It keeps the gut moving, and the sideways chewing grinds down teeth that never stop growing. A rabbit that will not eat hay ends up with both dental disease and a sluggish gut.

Pellets

A quarter cup a day for an adult Mini Lop, measured rather than topped up. Plain timothy-based pellets only. Anything with coloured pieces, seeds, corn or dried fruit is a muesli mix and rabbits selectively eat the sweet parts and leave the fibre, which is the whole problem.

Greens

Two good handfuls daily, introduced one at a time. Romaine, coriander, basil, parsley, dandelion greens, kale in moderation, carrot tops. Avoid iceberg lettuce, which is water and nothing else.

What a Mini Lop must not eat

• Iceberg lettuce, potato, rhubarb, onion, garlic, avocado
• Bread, crackers, cereal, pasta, anything baked
• Chocolate, dairy, meat, yoghurt drops
• Nuts and seeds
• Grass clippings from a mower, which ferment fast

Treats

A thin slice of banana, a small piece of apple with the pips out, a few blueberries. Once or twice a week, not daily. Fruit sugar changes the gut flora and a rabbit that fills up on treats stops eating hay.

Changing food safely

Feed exactly what the rabbit came on for two weeks. Then swap over roughly ten days: a quarter new for three days, half for three days, three quarters for three days, then all new. A sudden change is one of the most reliable ways to cause gut stasis in a rabbit that was fine yesterday.

Cecotropes

Rabbits produce soft clustered droppings at night and eat them directly. This is normal and necessary, and it is where a lot of their nutrition comes from. If you find them squashed around the pen, the diet is usually too rich, which almost always means too many pellets.

What a good diet looks like from outside

Round, dry, evenly sized droppings in quantity. A rabbit that eats hay steadily through the day. Stable weight and a clean back end. If droppings get small, misshapen or scarce, look at the diet before anything else. When to call a vet.