Feeding Rabbits in the Philippines: Why You Don't Give Grass from the Sidewalk / Open Lots (20)

Even to non-gardeners, it is fairly common knowledge that dog & cat poop are dangerous to your garden.  Your favorite pets' poop and urine have dangerous toxins, bacteria and parasites that can harm you and your other pets.

Would you eat herbs and lettuce coming from a field with dog / cat waste, garbage and exhaust from the nearby road?

Probably not.  The concept at work is phytoremediation.  Plants clean the soil and air by absorbing the toxins.  That means though all the dangerous stuff are in the roots, stems and leaves.  That's why you don't eat them.

That's why you shouldn't feed rabbits grass and plants coming from high-risk lots (parks, empty lots (people frequently throw garbage), gardens with pets).

If you're thinking of adopting a rabbit because you think these nearby "food sources" will make feeding them cheap, think again.  It's a bad idea that will harm rabbits.

Do read my prior article related to this (link below).

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SaveRabbitsPH Phytoremediation Article

CARING FOR YOUR RABBIT 16: MY PERSONAL GRASS, FRUIT AND VEGGIE SELECTION FOR MY BUNNIES

Here's a list of grasses and vegetables and fruits that I've tried feeding my bunnies. I'll also put in some that I keep seeing, but haven't tried. For me, grass hay takes 80% of the diet, pellets about 10% and greens another 10%. I'll indicate the max amounts I've tried. Clarification: I don't try them all at the same time. Remember, I just feed 10% greens of the daily diet

This is by no means an exhaustive list. This is just my personal preference. To each his own, right?

Common Name	Max Tried	Comment
Carabao Grass	10%	1 small bowl per day
Bermuda Grass	NA	Haven't tried, but common enough in PH
Napier Grass	10%	About 3 long strands per day (2 ft strands)
Wheat Grass	NA
Oat Grass	2%	1 small bowl per day. Very limited supply
Barley Grass	2%	1 small bowl per day. Very limited supply
Banana Leaves	10%	Roughly 12 x 4 inches leaf per day
Basil Leaves	5%	6-12 mid sized leaves. I give this unlimited during a GI Stasis episode. One of the few my bunny will eat
Mint Leaves	1%	Very limited supply. I rarely give it.
Dill Bristles	5%	One foot step. I just feed the bristles, NOT THE STEM. Secondary food during GI stasis.
Sweet Potato Leaves	10%	About 6-10 mid sized leaves. I give this unlimited during a GI stasis episode. The top food my bunny will eat during an attack
Water Spinach	10%	About 6-10 mid sized leaves. I give this unlimited during a GI stasis episode. However my bunny hardly eats this during a GI stasis attack
Cilantro	NA	Commonly cited as a GI stasis favorite. I haven't tried it
Madre de Agua	NA	Commonly cited as fodder. This is ideal for pigs, not rabbits (very high protein, very low fiber)
Moringa	1%	I very rarely give it. My bunnies don't like it much
Tarragon	1%	I very rarely give it. Fattening
Lemongrass	1%	I very rarely give it. Very limited supply
Pineapple	1%	I give one small piece every week. Supposedly helps digestion.

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Barley Grass, Carabago Grass, Sweet Potato #SaveRabbitsPH

Barley Grass, Carabago Grass, Sweet Potato #SaveRabbitsPH

RABBIT CARE IN THE PHILIPPINES 11 - RABBIT GI STASIS

GI Stasis is one of the common rabbit sicknesses and is also a very potent killer.  As a rabbit owner, you have to do all you can to prevent it (with a good diet!)  and then do all you can in first aid if your bunny does get it.  GI Stasis can kill in a matter of hours so you need to make sure that either you or someone you trust must be looking after your bunnies at all times.

Over the past three weeks, I've had 4-5 rabbit owners (mostly new) ask about it.  They usually don't know the name.  They just know the symptoms:

1) My bunny doesn't eat (hindi kumakain ang rabbit ko)
2) My bunny has small misshapen and soft poop (malambot ang pupu ng rabbit ko, walang pupu ang rabbit ko)
3) My bunny looks weak (matamlay ang rabbit ko)
4) My rabbit is in pain (parang nasasaktan ang rabbit ko)

Apart from those consultations, I am also part of several worldwide rabbit owners (not breeders!) groups and everyday someone will share that his bunny died because of GI Stasis.  It's really sad.

If you love your rabbit, you absolutely must invest in the first aid, especially for GI stasis: Pedialyte, Glucose Monohydrate, Simethicone, Gut Motility, and Pain Killer among others.   Even more important, be responsible enough to bring your rabbit to a rabbit savvy vet ASAP.  Read my post on Daisy's 4th GI Stasis attack.  It may help you in the future when you experience the same thing.

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Owning a Bunny in the Philippines 8 - The Baby Rabbit Diarrhea

In the last entry, I was talking about how Ethan almost died because of diarrhea.  I talked about changing his diet from Oxbow Hay to Choppy Hay (both Timothy) since he seems to like that better.  

Most of my research deals with rabbit diets.  I suppose the key mistake I made was not reading enough on baby rabbit diets.  Following his near death experience, I’ve since fed him 5-6 bowls of Choppy Timothy Hay and he has been voracious.  I was similarly concerned about his lack of water intake.  So much so that I even force fed him via a medicine dropper.  It’s clear now that it wasn’t necessary.  As soon as he started eating so much, he also started drinking as much.  From last night continuing to this morning, he has been spritely like he hasn’t been in weeks.  In between all of this, I’ve also given him at least a dozen pellets throughout the day and a couple of handfuls of Oxbow Alfalfa Hay.  Some literature would say unlimited amounts for both pellets and Oxbow Alfalfa Hay.  For now, I will increase the “dosage” but will not go as far as unlimited, except for Timothy Hay.

In this episode, we did call our vet from Vets in Practice.  She advised us to give him a teaspoon of pineapple juice and a few grams of Benebac (sorry I forgot the exact dosage she shared).  

Sadly I think the root cause of his ailment was hunger amidst a tray full of Oxbow Timothy Hay.  For my bigger bunnies, a little bit of tough love forces them to eat leftovers (yeah they all like ‘em new).  But that’s not something I can do with my scrawny baby Ethan.  

So yeah, I think the worst has passed although I’ll still keep an eye on him throughout the night later.   I’m disappointed that after all these years of loving care to my rabbits, I still make seemingly rookie mistakes like that.  I’m just really lucky Ethan pulled through.  

In my next update, perhaps I’ll talk about exactly how much I’ve gone with this Unli Alfalfa Hay thing for babies (rabbits under 1 year is what I read).  

So you want to get a rabbit 7 - A Baby Rabbit Diarrhea Emergency

I love weekend nights. With no work obligation, I can typically stay up the whole night to play with and care for my rabbits.  I was a little tired last night though coming from a company year-end party and so I was only able to check on my baby Ethan once last night at around 2 AM.  He was fine.  No outward signs of a problem.  The poop was not golden brown, but it was within the realm of normal.  

I stayed with the girls’ room for the rest of the night (Ethan, being new, is still in isolation).  When I was jolted awake by my body clock, it was past 6 AM.  Naturally my first instinct was to check on Ethan.  

I was shocked at the sight.  He was sleeping bent (not unusual for a rabbit, but it was for him).  I also saw splotches of wet poop throughout his cage.  I knew there was trouble.  When I tried carryng him, he had some convulsive actions but couldn’t stand.  

I woke Jean up and told her to run and prepare the glucose solution.  Within minutes, I held him in a trance position (I wouldn’t do this if it weren’t an emergency).  For the next 2 hours it seems, I kept trying to force feed him the glucose solution using a dropper but he hardly responded with a throat motion (i.e. didn’t seem like he was swalowing).  During that whole time, his breathing seemed really shallow and was not moving.  At some point, his head started shaking (like saying no) which seemed like a convulsive reaction too.  I just kept hoping.  

Jean also prepared an Oxbow critical care bowl, but first he needed to respond to the glucose. After a a while, I lay him down on my lap (with mats of course so he won’t fall).  I offered him a pellet.  Ever so slowly, he finally moved and tried to get it.  The next few minutes would be more hopeful as he kept responding to pellets.  I spooned some critical care to him, but he would only take a few.  In the next half hour, I would give him a pellet every few minutes until he could stand on his own.

After he did stand, he stayed on a pooping position (yeah you know what this looks like) for over an hour and must have pooped over a dozen nuggets.  Jean and I had breakfast separately so that he’ll have company.  Throughout that time, he stayed in place and was pooping.  The output?  Wet, but formed.

At that point, I figured the worst was over (at least for the day). He’s still here beside me.  It was harrowing experience even though we’ve been through that several times with Lily over the year.  

Postscript:

If you’ve not read my prior posts,  let me just say that I’m already extremely careful with my rabbits’ diet.  Still, things like this happen.  It’s very important to check on your rabbits (especially babies) at least every few hours.  In my case, in 4 short hours, my rabbit got sick and was no longer able to stand on his own.  We were fortunate this time around.  

I am also taking a risk and just straight shifting him from Oxbow Timothy to Choppy Timothy.  Yes, his poop was nice with Oxbow but he’s also been very picky.  And so it almost looks like he’s lost weight since I got him.  Choppy seems to be more palatable to rabbits.  It’s a risk because it’s a change in diet, but then again it’s Timothy to Timothy.  If this gets him stronger faster, then maybe it’s worth the risk. The adventure continues...

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So You Want to Get A Rabbit 6 - The Hay Panic Buying Episode

As you may have seen in my prior posts, I now have 3 full-grown bunnies and one 4-month baby. This means that the supply and demand dynamics have changed.

In the past I would have like a 2-3 month supply of hay. However, that includes some cheap Star Grass Hay that I got from a local supplier that was not enjoyed by my bunnies. So I’ve thrown the whole lot out. They were starting to smell moldy anyway.

Because I also have a space situation at home and I don’t want hay getting old, I had to manage down the supply a bit to perhaps 1-2 months. Over the past few months, I’ve shifted some of my supplies from Choppy Timothy Hay to Chipsi Meadow Hay because I had some bad stock of the Choppy. The difference is that Choppy came in 750G containers while Chispi came in 5KG containers.

I apologize for the long intro. It’s relevant.

So here’s what happened. My last Chipsi Meadow Hay smelled bad. Yikes. All of a sudden, I’m 5KG down for supplies. It also turns out that I was out of Kaytee Timothy and just had one small bag of Oxbow Western Timothy. Ethan, being a baby has been eating purely the Western Timothy. I’m still letting his gut get used to small amounts of different hay. Even worse, I had three small bags of Oxbow Oat Hay, which for some reason my rabbits have been ignoring (weird, since they used to love Oat Hay, ableit with different packaging).

So here I was with 4 bunnies, a low supply of the staple hay. Easy. Just buy new stocks. Chipsi Meadow Hay is out of stock. I’ve asked 3 different suppliers. OMG.

I immediately called my regular Star Grass Hay supplier and ordered 6 KG (not the tasteless one from above). Now, by bunnies love this fragrant, shredded hay, but it also has some negative impact on the poop. Their poop becomes rather black and on the wet side. It leads me to think it’s too rich to be used as staple. To compare, using Timothy or Meadow (or even Verselle Laga Natural Hay (but they also don’t enjoy this too much)) as staple makes their poop big, golden brown and very nicely shaped.

Luckily, I was able to swap my wet-smelling unusable Meadow Hay from the supplier with 4 bags of Choppy Timothy Hay. So both deliveries happened yesterday. All in all, I received about 9 KG of hay yesterday. Even then I’m not very confident of my supply. My bunnies will mow through that in a few weeks. In the days leading to this, my supply situation became so tense that my wife was volunteering to fly to HK to get hay there. I sort of suspect her motives though. :-)

The whole point my fellow bunny lovers in the Philippines, the hay supply situation in our country is not very stable since we don’t seem to have a very developed rabbit market. The irony of this is that none of the pet stores carry hay. Oh you will find some once in a while, but usually not in good quality.

Here’s the lesson: 1) Have multiple hay suppliers; 2) Get your rabbits used to different staple hay while you have time (so that their tummy doesn’t have to adjust when you do change supplies); 3) Have at least 2 months worth of hay stored. If you love your rabbit, you’ll find that my tip makes sense. Have fun!

So You Want to Get a Rabbit 2 

– The Rabbit Diet

A rabbit’s tummy is extremely delicate! In my experience the biggest cause of fatality is a diarrhea. And don’t think like it’s a person’s diarrhea that you can gut (pun intended) for days to weeks. A rabbit’s’ runny poop can kill it within hours. And so the reaction time must be really fast. To help aid you as a future rabbit owner, here are a couple of tips I’ve picked up along the way.

• New food should be introduced in the course of weeks – Just because you see a list of vegetables that rabbits can eat doesn’t mean that you can feed all of those right away. For example, when I got my Lily from Avilon Zoo, one of the key things we asked for is the pellets she was eating. Even though those were not high quality pellets (don’t look and smell it), her tummy was used to those. I weaned her away for about 2 months before buying new pellets. However, I did risk giving her timothy hay right away. So her diet was unlimited timothy hay and the substandard pellets from Avilon Zoo. In practice, I even had multiple types of timothy hay and star grass hay, but I didn’t risk those at once. Along the way, I patiently introduced different types of vegetables, but never more than a leaf or so at a time (basil, kang kong, kamote leaves, dill).

• Hay and clean water are given in unlimited amounts - I could never understand the store practice of feeding rabbits on specific times only (both food and water). My bunnies are always surrounded in hay. That’s how much you need to prepare for. That typical 750 gram timothy hay that is most available in Manila will be finished in a week if it’s the only food you give to one bunny. Depending on who you get it from, that’s about P400 / week. I can’t tell you how precise that is because it’s been a while since I had only that. I always feed a variety of timothy and star grass hay (my personal preference). If I had to advice you, I would keep at least 3 bags in reserve. There are infinitely more dog and cat supplies out there than bunny ones. And knowing how critical food is to rabbits, a healthy dose of preparation goes a long way.

• Veggies and Pellets in restricted amounts – I can’t tell you the practices of breeders and pet shop owners. But as a rabbit owner that cares very much, I err on the side of caution. On a given day, I may give my full grown rabbit – 5 kang kong leaves, 1 very small slice of carrot, a handful of alfalfa hay and about a small scoop of pellets in the course of the day. I don’t give them all at one time. This is not a hard and fast rule of course. My guide is really the poop. If the poop looks a little small and dry, I would give a few more wet kang kong leaves. If the poop is on the wet side, I may restrict veggies and pellets and just keep to hay. This is a practice I have to do every few hours. Yes, you check poop that often. So on the side, you should be cleaning out poop as real time as possible so that you know which “samples” are recent.

• Some paranoia in order – Whenever I see deformed or slightly soft poop, I typically cancel whatever it is I have for the next few hours to observe my rabbit. Yep, rabbit above all else. When the poop is better, I can leave.

So future rabbit owner, please consider my experience. I’ve learned a lot of them the hard way. Taking care of a rabbit takes some money, a lot of time and a healthy dose of paranoia.

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