Rabbit Feeding Guide
Introduction
If you search the internet you will see repeated over any over the rabbits should have 80% hay or an all hay diet. The 80% hay recommendation and propaganda was started by House Rabbit Society. Oxbow is a partner to House Rabbit Society and funds them. For the past two decades House Rabbit Society has approached soon to graduate DVMs going into exotics specialty and offered them "Assistance " on rabbits, even help starting their practices! This makes many vets beholden to HRS and their practices are colored with HRS faulty information. I advise you to look at your sources a second time.. even the big colleges, Purdue, UC Davis, Colorado, WSU.... look at their Rabbit care guides, then scroll down to the citations and fine print... and you'll have House Rabbit Society's fingerprints in it. Hence why Oxbow bags carry their feeding recommendations. Oxbow has a near monopoly on the pet rabbit market and thus this incorrect info spread over the last 2 decades.
ARBA care guides are written by an entire panel of DVMs and pellets making up the majority of the diet is their recommendation.
Not only that, but a study of the teeth/jaws and digestion of wild rabbits vs domestic rabbits concluded that hay is poor in nutrition, hard to chew which actually cause malocclusion, and causes periodontal disease from hay getting stuck between teeth.
Wild rabbits are high nutrition selectors, they only resort to dried hay like grasses in times of starvation/deep winter, just to stay alive.
Pellet Feeding Recommendations
ARBA recommends feeding a complete balanced pellet as the main source of nutrition. Rule of thumb for selecting complete pellets for your rabbit should start with a baseline of 16% protein, 15% fiber, and a grass or legume as the first ingredient. Typically feed instructions will suggest you feed a measured amount to most adult rabbits rationed twice a day. Total daily intake should equal 1oz of pellet per lb of ideal adult body weight. ie:" a 10lb adult rabbit would receive 5oz of pellets in the morning and 5oz pellets at night.
A complete balanced Pellets should make up between 80% and 100% of a rabbits diet.
Nuanced Feeding recommendations :
==Feed related
Rabbit Tracks: Feeds and Feeding April 24, 2017 - Author: Michigan State University Extension
Impact of feed restriction and of the hygiene of housing on rabbit performances and health
RECENT RESEARCH ADVANCES IN RABBIT NUTRITION December 2000
Reflections on rabbit nutrition with a special emphasis on feed ingredients utilization January 2004
Nutrition Know-How: Pet Rabbit Nutrition September 2011 (Vol 32, No 9)
==Hay:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5606619/
Debunked Studies whose info is still used as "evidence" for House Rabbit society Propaganda:
[Preference of rabbits for drinking from open dishes versus nipple drinkers https://www.proquest.com/openview/aab930d5ae37a871a6db58254da14fdb/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=2041027&fbclid=IwAR231sEmTCZBjH9nE5l6q1mFN-Hb9dXPREmaXCS279ipOCuc4BZDUXeJGtQ] Tschudin, A; Clauss, M; Codron, D; Hatt, J-M.The Veterinary Record; London Vol. 168, Iss. 7, (Feb 19, 2011): 190.
This study was widely discredited, and removed from Researchgate, and Pubmed , becuse the sample size was 12 dwarf rabbits total. Not large enough sample to gather any concussive evidence.
