Rabbits are herbivores, their diet includes vegetables, grass, hays, pellets and some plants. Rabbits also known as bunnies are one of the families of small mammals called Leporidae. There are 29 species of rabbits around the world.
Rabbits are grazers, they are always chewing on something, in fact, rabbits that are not in captivity, the wild ones consume a lot of food daily. Rabbits’ favourite diet includes hays, pellets, vegetables e.t.c
Can rabbits actually go long without eating? If so, how long can they stay alive and agile without eating?
How Long Can Rabbits Go Without Food?
Like most living things need food in order to have energy, rabbits also need food. In fact, they need lots of it. That being said, the important question is how long can rabbits go without eating?
Rabbits are grazers which simply means rabbits are animals that eat grass and animals that are grazers need to eat continuously. If they go as high as 12 hours without consuming any food, they have a high probability of developing a potentially deadly ailment called GI stasis.
GI Statis basically causes a rabbit’s digestive system to slow down. And when their system slows down, it causes their stomach to dehydrate and makes food to digest more difficult, causing bacteria to build up which results in gas.
How Often Does a Rabbit Need to Eat?
Rabbits are grazers, which means they tend to eat all the time. They are very active and physical mammals and would need a lot of food and nutrients to support their movement.
Rabbits are herbivores, even with that fact they still have dietary restrictions. Their digestive system is not designed to process all types of plants. As a pet owner, you should be responsible for what your rabbits consume.
Rabbits when left in their natural habitats are free to roam wherever they want. And they tend to burn and consume more food as a result of the energy they burn. But since your rabbits are being placed in captivity, they do not roam around the same way wild ones do.
So the ideal number of times you should feed your rabbit is twice daily, once at dawn and the other at dusk. You don’t want to feed them more than two times to avoid them being overfed.
Do Rabbits Die if They Don’t Eat?
Every living thing needs the energy to sustain life as we know it. Humans and animals get it from eating food either from meat or plants or other food sources, while plants get their food from sunlight using photosynthesis to create it.
Without the consumption of food, the body lacks the energy to move and do basic features. It starts converting fats in the body into energy. Eventually, if food is not consumed then death.
This analogy is also applicable to rabbits, in fact, it is more applicable to rabbits than it is to humans. Rabbits are active animals, they move and jump and run a lot. They need energy which is a by-product of food for sustainability. If they starve for 3 – 4 days they will die.
How Long Can Rabbits Go Without Pellets?
A Rabbit’s digestive system needs a balance of the proper nutrients to enable healthy growth and energy.
Pellets are ideal rabbit food and most pet owners choose rabbit pellets to feed their pet rabbits. They contain grains and vitamins which are nutritious to rabbits.
Rabbits that do not eat pellets would likely survive for a very long time. Pellet’s main job is to make up for all the missing nutrients from your rabbit’s main diet.
So, as long as you are feeding your rabbit the right amount of quality hay and vegetables, they should survive for a long time. Vegetables can also provide the missing nutrients that hay alone can not supplement.
It’s just that it’s really hard for the average pet owner to find the right mixture of vegetables, fruits, and herbs to provide their pet with all those important nutrients.
As long as your rabbit’s only diet is not pellets, then your rabbit can go as long as possible without eating pellets.
What Happens When a Rabbit Doesn’t Eat for 24 Hours?
Rabbits need access to food and water 24 hours a day. They should also eat most of the minutes of alertness, perhaps with a break of a few minutes, especially if they are distracted by you or something else.
They graze regularly throughout the day instead of eating special meals on time. Constantly feeding the stomach, allows the stomach and intestinal system to stay moist, and allows food to constantly enter the system and be eliminated properly.
As long as the rabbit is left without food, its stomach dries out. A dehydrated stomach cannot pass food through the intestinal tract, causing gas and bloating, which can eventually lead to death.
Do Rabbits Need Hay Every Day?
Hay might look dry and disgusting to humans but for rabbits, it should be their main dish of the day, with 80-90% of their diet needing to be hay! (and the grass is very good too!)
Hays is made up of long fibres that help keep the abdominal muscles of the rabbit strong. The rabbit’s complex digestive system means that they have to snack on food all day to help avoid blockage (for example, from furs or stones they have swallowed. Rabbits don’t really have a sense of what they should consume and what they should not). If their abdominal musicals are blocked, it can be really fatal and dangerous for the rabbit. It can cause problems like GI stasis.
A rabbit’s diet should consist of 70 – 80% of hay and hay should be fed and consumed by the rabbits every day.
How Much Pellets Should a Rabbit Eat Everyday?
Rabbits are grazers, which means they tend to eat all the time. They are very active and physical mammals and would need a lot of food and nutrients to support their movement.
Rabbits are herbivores, even with that fact they still have dietary restrictions. Their digestive system is not designed to process all types of plants. As a pet owner, you should be responsible for what your rabbits consume.
Rabbits when left in their natural habitats are free to roam wherever they want. And they tend to burn and consume more food as a result of the energy they burn. But since your rabbits are being placed in captivity, they do not roam around the same way wild ones do.
So the ideal number of times you should feed your rabbit is twice daily, once at dawn and the other at dusk. You don’t want to feed them more than two times to avoid them being overfed.
An average-sized adult rabbit only needs a one-quarter cup of pellets daily. If your rabbit is under five pounds, feed it just one-eighth of a cup. Rabbits under one-year-old can also be fed pellets.
Conclusion
A rabbit’s health depends entirely on the owner. Unlike rabbits in the wild who have the luxury of roaming around to get food themselves, a pet rabbit does not have that luxury. So their diet and how well they eat is up to their owner.
A rabbit is a grazer and it needs to snack on either grass or hays or pellets pretty much all the time. If a rabbit is not fed constantly, it runs the risk of getting abdominal infections which might bring diseases like GI stasis. And also, a rabbit is an active mammal, it moves around a lot and to move around, it needs frequent consumption.
With a proper and regulated food and diet plan, your rabbit won’t run risks of getting infected or worse dying.
