If you are a pet lover person and having a pet like a bunny, I am pretty sure that you wait for that precious moment when your rabbit chews something. It’s a great view that can make your day, isn’t it?
Ok, for that cute rabbit and for longer that cute scene of it, you need to know the good diet for your rabbit. As they are not so sincere about what to eat and what to avoid, you have to give a caring sight for it by yourself.
We often give our rabbits various foods without knowing about their pros and cons. Following this saying, this question obviously comes-
Can Rabbits Eat Nuts?
Well, the answer is No. Though nuts don’t give a risk of liver failure or anything else problem. But the nuts are not suitable for the fragile digestive system of our rabbits. And that’s a pretty serious internal problem for an animal like rabbits.
So What’s Wrong With Nuts?
Well, we all know that nuts are good for health. For human beings and other animals, nuts are okay. But for rabbits, it’s not so good for them. Rabbits are herbivores food eater animal. So a high fiber food which is low in sugar, fat, and starch is suitable for them. But nut is not that type of food.
A nut contains magnesium, Vitamin E, Omega-3, Omega-6 and fat. The fat is monounsaturated. The Omegas are polyunsaturated. So basically this type of fat makes your rabbit’s lung fat. And lung fat is harmful to good breathing.
So, when you raise the question “Can rabbits eat nuts?” The answer is definitely NO.
More specifically, a nut is a fruit we know. And as a fruit, it contains fiber too. But this type of fiber doesn’t help the same way the others do. In wild, rabbits find fiber from grass, hay, leaves and so on.
That fiber helps in adding bulk to its stool, aiding in their satiety, and supporting the healthy gut bacteria. But as the nut contains starch too, it doesn’t help in that way.
There is a cecum in their belly that works like a pocket surrounded by their digestive system. The ingredient inside a cecum breaks down while a rabbit eats fiber type food to make the fermenting process well.
This whole process releases vitamins, amino acids, and fats that help your rabbit meet their dietary needs. This cecum needs food that contains cellulose. And a nut is not a cellulose food at all.
Rabbit Eating Mint : Matter of concern
If your rabbit doesn’t get cellulose foods that much then it may start to develop vitamin or mineral deficiencies. Vitamin deficiencies are far from the worst thing that by be done by nuts to your rabbit. Nuts can do cecal motility disorders. This means abnormal intestinal contractions, such as spasms and intestinal paralysis. And paralysis is the stage you must become concern about your rabbit.
Nuts are rich in starch and sugar, which can destroy the gastrointestinal tract. Those rabbits that eat these foods may have bloating, constipation, bacterial overgrowth in the gut or gastrointestinal stasis. You can find that your rabbit refuses food, produces discolored or watery pellets, or does not produce any pellets for 12 hours after having much amount of nuts.
So before any type of inconvenience, avoid nuts from the start.
What if I Give Them Some Nuts Before?
Well giving them one or two pieces of nuts isn’t as harmful as it is described above. But yet, it is not so good idea at all. It happens that while we take some food, we want to give a share of it to the rabbits in our subconscious mind. It happens not only to the rabbits but also to all other pets.
But you should have reminded that nuts are rich in fat, magnesium, and starch. These three things are harmful to the digestive problem as this start giving heat to the system of digesting. So these are harmful to any of your pets.
And Even Though if I Want to Give Nuts?
Well, after all these if you want to give them nuts then you should follow some steps. There are many kinds of nuts. Among them, peanuts, hazelnuts, Brazilian nuts, cashew nuts, pecans, macadamia, walnuts are safe nuts to give rabbits.
And the steps now, how you would give them nuts- firstly, check the nuts are fresh or not.
Don’t give them any damage nut or attached with insects. Then you should keep them in the water for one or two hours. But it is a great idea if you give nuts as a treat. It’s like giving nuts occasionally. You can also grunge them and mix them with hay. In that way, rabbits would be able to digest them well with the fiber food.
Nuts and Age of Rabbits
But still, you must remember the age of your rabbits before giving nuts. The larger one like the age of 8 months to above can digest them easily.
But if the rabbits are still little, age of 3-6 months, you should not provide nuts into their diet chart.
Final Thoughts
So the thing is clear that it’s not safe to give nuts to the rabbits. But yet, if you want to give your rabbits nuts, try to give nuts as an occasional treat. Remember, herbivorous foods like grass, hay or spinach are much easy to find and give them. These foods are healthy as well as their favorite too. Green leafy foods are much easy to find than foods like nuts!
