Rabbit Safe Foods

Think like a Rabbit

Remember an important detail.... rabbits are NOT people.   So even though rabbits are herbivores (vegetarians NOT by choice) and people can be vegetarians (herbivores by choice) does not mean that bunnies and people have the same vegetarian requirements.

Bunnies eat bunny food.  People eat people food.

With that said: think smart, think like a rabbit, and feed SAFE greens if so desired

Safe greens

This list inspired by Modern Homesteading newsletter, Newsletter 1-31-05.  

Acacia: no food value, but twigs can be entertainment
Alfalfa: fresh or hay
Apples: all parts - be mindful of seeds toxic over time.
Barley
Beets: both top and root of regular, sugar, or mangel
Bermuda grass
Blackberry bush leaves
Bluegrasses, including Canadian
Bread: dry, or soaked in milk
Buckwheat
Carpet grass
Carrot: root and tops.
Cereals (if fat-free and fresh)
Cheeseweed (malva)
Chicories
Clovers: any but sweet clover
Coltsfoot
Corn: fresh or dried ears, fresh or dried stalks.
Cow Parsnip
Crabgrass
Dandelion
Dogwood
Fescue: red, etc.
Filaree (stork’s bill)
Grains: all types, unless dirty, damp, or moldy
Grass: Lawn clippings, grass grains, as long as they carry no
insecticides & are fresh
Hazelnut leave
Jerusalem artichokes: tops, stems, or roots
Kale
Kentucky bluegrass
Knotgrass
Kohlrabi: all parts of plant okay
Kudzu
Lettuce: all kinds - think smart, don't over feed!
Lespedeza
Malva (cheeseweed)
Meadow fescue
Milk: fresh or sour, as well as milk products
Millet: foxtail and Japanese
Milo
Napier grass
Oats
Orchard grass
Panicgrass
Parsnips
Peas and pea vines
Plantain
Poplar
Prairie grass
Redtop grass
Rhodes grass
Root vegetables
Rye, rye grass, and Italian rye grass
Sheep sorrel
Sorghum grains
Spinach: in limited amount
Sprouted grains
Sudan grass
Sumac
Sunflower: leaves, stalks, or seeds
Sweet potatoes: vines or tubers
Swiss chard: in limited amount
Timothy
Turkey mullein
Turnips: all parts of plant
Vetch
Wheat
Willow

Other personal notes: mine will eat melon rinds of all sorts … plus any flesh I leave on them. I make a point of only feeding one slice per week. Don’t want to overdo this wet  and sweet food at all. Mine do not do well on cabbage itself, they can handle limited amounts of broccoli stalks. I am VERY careful with this family of plants.  Causing bloat in rabbits is NOT a good idea.

Exercise Caution

Potato: but, not peelings, sprouts or leaves!   Best if cooked.
Beans and bean vines (not soybean) - fresh NOT dried. 
Cabbage: some is okay --- I recommend caution, as some rabbits will bloat.
Fruit: oranges, grapefruit, cherries, peaches etc.   These are sugar to bunnies, pits are a no go for most any animal.
Carrot roots: these are sugar to bunnies.

Do NOT feed

Some greens are high in oxalic acid in the uncooked state: pigweed, amaranth greens, spinach, comfrey, and Swiss chard. To a small-weight rabbit, especially a young one, these can be a problem. I do feed some spinach and chard to mine because they like it, but I don’t give them a whole lot. The plants listed below range from deadly poisonous, to hard-on-a-bunny, to no nutritional value.

Amaranth - I've heard of folks feeding amaranth  without issues.
Arrowgrass
Bracken fern
Bromweed
Buckeye
Burdock
Castor beans
Cherry leaves
Chinaberry
Chokecherry leaves or pits
Comfrey — Personal note: some folks feed this with no problems.
Fireweed
Foxglove
Goldenrod
Hemlock, poison/water
Horehound
Jimson weed
Johnson grass
Larkspur
Laurel
Lupine
Mesquite
Milkweed — personal note: yet wild bunnies have been known to eat this no probs.   Dried it WILL kill a rabbit or at minimum make it quite ill.
Miner’s lettuce
Moldy bread, moldy anything
Oak
Oleander
Pigweed – mine will eat the young leaves, they leave the stalk and older leaves
Poppy
Potato leaves, sprouts, or peels
Rhubarb leaves
Soybeans or soybean vines
Sweet clover – personal note — what’s wrong with clover?
Tarweed
Tomato leaves - though some rabbits can eat these with ill effect!