Other Animals

Rabbit

In the wild rabbits exist almost entirely on grass so if you want to feed your rabbit on a natural diet grass would be the thing. Realistically, however, the domestic rabbit can be fed on hay with additions.

Rabbits require green vegetable. Greens, such as dandelion leaf, are fine. So is most leaf lettuce (but not iceberg as it has a very high water content and limited nutritional value). Herbs are good. Rabbits tend to love parsley! Broccoli, kale and cabbage are OK but not in large quantities. A small quantity of carrots or, preferably, carrot tops with leaves is also fine. Radicchio/Italian chicory is also fine.

As a treat you can give your rabbit small quantities of chopped fruit: Apples, bananas, grapes, pears and strawberries are fine. But a maximum of one tablespoon per day per five pound weight of rabbit as they have a high sugar content. Don’t give dried fruit, nuts, seeds, corn, beans or split peas as they can be fatal. Make sure all food is cleaned (washed) and fresh.

Do make sure your rabbit stays healthy on the diet you feed him. Sometimes rabbits need extra fibre, in which case you will probably have to add commercially available rabbit pellets to his food.

Guinea pig / Cavy

Like rabbits, wild guinea pigs eat grass. However, unlike rabbits guinea pigs need a high amount of vitamin C in their diet. If you feed natural food this can usually be provided by fresh, raw fruits and vegetables (such as apple, cabbage, carrot, celery, and spinach). Hay, particularly Timothy hay, is a necessity and alfalfa can also be fed. Guinea pigs are notoriously hard to introduce new foods to so it is best to start them on a wide variety whilst they are young. They will often starve themselves to death rather than eat a new food. If you are unable to provide the appropriate varied natural diet you may have to consider feeding a commercial complementary food especially if you need to supplement the vitamin C intake.

A number of plants are poisonous to guinea pigs, including bracken, bryony, buttercup, charlock, deadly nightshade, foxglove, hellebore, hemlock, Lily of the Valley, mayweed, monkshood, privet, ragwort, rhubarb, speedwell, toadflax, and wild celery. Additionally, any plant which grows from a bulb (e.g., tulip, garlic and onion) is normally considered poisonous.

Hamster

Because wild hamsters live in desert conditions they have a food requirement which is mainly seed. Therefore we must recommend that their ‘normal’ food should be a proprietary seed blend specially formulated for them. However, you can give your hamster treats such as parsley, carrot, apple, celery, broccoli, sprouts, cauliflower, kale, spinach, peas, swede, tomatoes, banana and cucumber.