What's The Best Source of Abundant, Healthy, and Natural Rabbit Food? Trees! 

Its funny, dry leaves are like nice crunchy chips for rabbits! Most of the wood around here gets burned for heat in the winter, but the little twigs often make it in with the dried leaves!

Its a great summer food!

Its true that they are not "true ruminants" but unlike many other herbivores, rabbits have an enlarged cecum where a lot of fermentation happens and keeping the bacteria balanced in there is similar to what you would need to do in other ruminants. They also have a specific type of manure called night feces which they consume directly from their anus similar to how cows would chew cud. These feces are very different from the rabbit manure you see on the ground and are the reason why rabbits can extract lots of nutrients from hay. Generally speaking I prefer to refer to them as quasi ruminants because they are in my opinion, they are closer to ruminants than other monogastric herbivores.

I don't usually cut and bundle, I just pick them up off the ground. Perhaps I'll give it a go!

I wanna see that also

Black locust is often called false acacia, and in a lot of places in the US people just call it acacia. The dead give away for black locust is the seeds. Since locust is a legume, its seed pods look like big beans!

@@westmeadowrabbits I was wrong with my first comment because I was confusing black locust with honey locust trees. Everything I have read tells me that black locust trees are toxic to animals and should not be fed to them. The honey locust tree have big spikes on them and have big banana like seed pods which turn brown before winter, the leaves and the seed pods can be fed to animals. Where I live the people used to eat the gooey honey like stuff from inside the pod because it's sweet. My goats and sheep used to eat the seed pods, which is why I now have around 50 of the trees growing in my garden. Acacia do look a lot like black locust which would explain why people call the black locust the false acacia. I have no experience of the black locust, but everyone says they are toxic, which makes me believe you are feeding your rabbits real acacia. The only reason I am making the point is that maybe you are wrong, you are calling them black locust and people watching your video might feed real black locust leaves to their rabbits and they might all die.

@@vidinman I'm aware that a lot of information say's black locust is toxic but it's totally wrong. Black locust and honey locust are closely related, but both are fairly easy to tell apart from acacia, which doesn't even really grow in my region. All that being said, plant toxicity is an incredibly complicated topic that really needs it's own video. Most vet or online sources will list plenty of harmless species (oak, pine, comfrey, etc for example) as toxic because under very specific circumstances they MIGHT harm your stock. In reality animals are really good at avoiding deadly plants (assuming they aren't starving to death), and there are relativity few plants that animals will readily eat that will kill them. In fact the things that can make plants like locust or oak toxic in extremely high doses (chemical compounds present in the leaves) are beneficial at normal levels. They help build up resistance in your animals and reduce parasite loads. And as I said before, assuming you have quality hay and pellets available, most rabbits will stop eating a plant long before it could harm them. An example with humans would be tea. In normal doses, it's an antioxidant and gives you energy, but in theory, if you drank enough tea, you could have a heart attack from all the caffeine. But a normal human would stop drinking tea long before they were in any danger because they would feel worse and worse. Animals are the same.

Sounds like a lot of free food!

Use your rabbits as a guide, its tough to give individual recommendations. You need to access their condition and their appetite and make adjustments.

Bass equipment

I have never noticed any issues, but I don't feed maple all that often, usually only once or twice a week. If its working for you then I would assume its fine!

Yes just start slowly and work your way up. It is very palatable so your rabbits will probably dive right in. While feeding black locust can significantly reduce the amount of pellets you use, if you are trying to get your entirely rabbits off pellets you will need to formulate a complete diet with more than just black locust.

Thanks

How much do you feed your rabbuts generally.

I don't have any experience wit that plant. I would see if you can find any info on sheep, if not you could always give it a try slowly, but be cautious.

I haven't tried it personally but I don't see why not!

While I understand your concern, these are farm animals, not pets. They are kept comfortable and healthy, but are not treated like pets. Rabbits are more than content in cages, they evolved to spend most of their days underground in burrows. Furthermore these animals have been bred for decades to thrive in cages and farm contexts. I can assure you that they are perfectly safe and comfortable. I've raised thousands of rabbits in cages and never had any issue.

Farm animals are not wild animals...they have been domesticated, which is to say that they have been bred to prefer the "protected" living environment, over being left to their own devices.

They are in cages because its safer lol. They dont need to run, rabbits dont run unless they are chased anyway.

@@tzoninghard2425 it must be so hard having such extensive knowledge on rabbits as you do and no one really caring about what you have to say… 🥲

@@chanejuys idk kid, your the one that upset and emotional over this. maybe dont talk out your ass next time.