Rabbit Advice: Do lop eared rabbits need alfalfa pellets in their diet?

I only feed my rabbits timothy hay. Is it necessary for me to feed them both alfalfa pellets and timothy hay? What would happen if I don't ever feed them alfalfa pellets and only give them hay by itself? Can they die?Rabbit Advice: Do lop eared rabbits need alfalfa pellets in their diet?
I would never recommend feeding them alfalfa pellets. A lot of people who fed alfalfa to their rabbits had them die around three or four years of age because they got really sick. I would recommend Oxbow Timothy Hay and Oxbow Timothy Pellets. This is like supreme rabbit food that meets all the requirements that rabbit's need. I've heard pellets make rabbits fat, but personally I believe that pellets give them nutrients that hay doesn't give. I have two rabbits that are the perfect weight, just don't over feed your rabbit!Rabbit Advice: Do lop eared rabbits need alfalfa pellets in their diet?
Feeding mainly timothy hay in adult rabbits is actually perfect. You can supplement their diet with timothy pellets, but it's not necessary. When I first got my minilop, he would ONLY eat the timothy hay. Until then, I've always fed pellets and hay to my rabbits. I asked my VERY knowledgeable rabbit vet, and she had stated that feeding just the timothy hay with 1cup of fruits/veggies/greens each day is perfect. Feeding too much alfalfa can actually cause urinary stones in adult rabbits because of the high calcium content.
Actually it sounds like kouneli's vet wasn't as knowledgeable about rabbit's as one might think. The vet was right about the fact that alfalfa is high in calcium and that later in life when the rabbit is really, really old that it could cause stones in the urinary tract. However the vet recommending to give just veggies and timothy hay is a recipe for disaster.





Rabbits need at least 12% crude protein in their diet to grow properly. Timothy hay has about 9% crude protein. Most veggies only have about 0.5% to 3% crude protein. Now if you fed about half veggies and half timothy, that means your rabbit would get about 4.5% protein or about a third of what it should get as far as protein.





Veggies and fruits are also normally low in fiber and high in starches or sugar, making them good at causing diarrhea. Since timothy is high in fiber, it does tend to counter-balance that to help prevent the rabbit from getting diarrhea.





Timothy hay does have a lot of minerals and stuff that a rabbit needs, but it nowhere comes close to providing a balanced diet. It lacks vitamins that the rabbit needs and it definitely lacks the protein that the rabbit needs in its diet. A rabbit that does not get enough protein in its diet will either be stunted in growth or it will tend to become bony over its backbone. Some unknowledgable pet owners dare I say it actually call the bony backbone a good thing. To me, that's like saying seeing a starving child or mal-nourished animal is a good thing. It makes me cringe when I read it. The rabbit becomes boney because it is not getting enough protein to support the upkeep of it's muscles. So it uses up its muscles for protein in the diet. When that fails the rabbit will many times start eating its own fur to gain protein from its fur.





A rabbit really needs about 16% protein. And timothy hay alone doesn't provide that. If you added some soybean meal to the diet, then it might work, but you'd still might need to add a vitamin supplement to the water.





Good rabbit pellets are designed to give your rabbit a balanced diet. They give your rabbit the protein it needs to grow properly, the fiber it needs to prevent diarrhea...micro minerals, vitamins, etc.





If you change that diet too much you unbalance the diet. Purina on it's rabbit website recommend feeding the rabbit pellets as the main staple of the rabbits diet and that treats should compose no more than 10% of the rabbit's diet by weight.





I studied animal nutrition in college. I've read numerous books and articles on rabbit nutrition and on rabbit food sources such as hay. If you want to read up about rabbit nutrition there are two good sources. Peter Cheeke has written a book on rabbit nutrition. Most of the vets that reference rabbit nutrition reference his work but many interpret it wrongly. He is one of the foremost authorities on rabbit nutrition that I have come across and he does research on rabbit nutrtion at Oregon State University.





The American Rabbit Breeders Association is also another good source. They have over 40,000 member that raise rabbits. The organization has been around for almost 100 years and they set the rules for rabbit judging. Their membership also consists of a number of rabbit nutritionists, rabbit vets, and thousands of people that have raised large quantities of rabbits for years and show them in competition. They work with many universities across the country and world in rabbit research regarding rabbit nutrition and rabbit diseases and keep up to date on the latest findings.