Mary Allen
Fresh green is hard to find now. Nevertheless, rabbits do not have to do without fresh food. The winter season offers more culinary variety than you might think.
Nature does not abandon its creatures. In autumn, she lays the table so generously that animals can eat fat or stock up. The pets don’t have to worry either; the keeper stores suitable supplies for them. Apples, beets, and carrots are the classics. Quinces are less well known than forage fruit. Fresh from the tree, they are hard and have a bitter taste. Only after storage (or during cooking) do they reveal their culinary qualities. In addition to jam and jelly for the two-legged friend, the blessing also serves as rabbit food. The famous doctor Hippocrates was so enthusiastic about the quince that he described it as the fruit most beneficial to health.
The combination of tannins and mucilage contained in quinces, which keep the digestive tract healthy, is of interest to rabbit keepers. They can help with stomach and intestinal inflammation, stop diarrhea and soothe inflamed intestinal mucosa. Other ingredients include essential oils, flavonoids, anthocyanins, vitamins B1, B2, C, niacin, organic acids, and, somewhat surprisingly, hypericin. The latter is known as the main active ingredient in St. John’s wort. In addition to a variety of other healing effects, hypericin is said to inhibit clostridia, which are toxin-forming bacteria responsible for serious digestive problems such as mucoid enteritis, eardrum addiction, and intestinal paralysis.
Quince seeds were already used for rabbits in the past: “The mucus from quince seeds has proven to be very useful in treating watery eyes,” wrote Paul Starke in his “Practical Rabbit Breeding” from 1899. To do this, he soaked whole quince seeds in water for a few hours; he washed his eyes with the mucus that formed. Since the seeds also contain hydrocyanic acid, they must not be crushed.
For feeding, chop a raw quince into small pieces and give about a tablespoonful per day. Most rabbits enjoy eating them, a few may take some getting used to. If you want to preserve a large quince harvest, cut the fruit into thin slices and let them dry on the Dörrex at a medium temperature. They are suitable as winter treats or are specifically fed to animals with digestive problems.
From the Garden, Forest, and Kitchen
The forest also provides food for rabbits; Acorns have always been collected by breeders. After drying, peel them and keep them airy. They are also helpful for stomach and intestinal weakness and can stop diarrhea thanks to the tannin content. With 60 percent carbohydrates, but only 4 percent each fat and protein, they are quite nutritious. Rabbits get half an acorn per day.
If you fancy grandmother’s acorn coffee, you have to boil the acorns for a few minutes after peeling them to remove the bitter tannins. After drying, the acorns are ground into a powder and roasted at low temperatures until brown. Add a tablespoonful of this to 4 dl of water, boil, and let the drink steep for a few minutes. Acorn coffee was used in folk medicine for gland swelling, rickets, and exhaustion.
The sweet chestnut also belongs to the winter food. Minerals such as potassium, phosphorus, iron, manganese, copper, sulfur, magnesium, and vitamins B, C, E, and folic acid make them valuable feed. Chestnuts are also a job for the animals because the rabbits have to bite open the shells and gnaw out the pulp. Two to three chestnuts a week are enough. In traditional Chinese medicine, sweet chestnuts are considered a tonic. They help with lack of energy and exhaustion, bring underweight people back to their normal weight quickly, strengthen the muscles and balance the intestinal flora. They also stimulate milk production. Caution: sweet chestnuts should not be confused with horse chestnuts because horse chestnuts are poisonous to rabbits.
In winter, wildlife eats buds and bark. This is also a good thing for pet rabbits because gnawing on branches is far more than just an occupation. It keeps the teeth healthy and the valuable active ingredients that are concentrated in the buds strengthen the health of the animals. Branches of willow, hazel, alder, beech, birch are well suited. When pruning the fruit trees in winter, suitable branches are also obtained; Apple, pear, and quince branches are particularly popular. In the forest, after logging, you can find spruce and fir branches that you can take with you. Since they contain essential oils in large quantities, they are only given in small quantities; they strengthen the immune system and respiratory tract.
Rabbits Love Potatoes
There are always delicacies from the kitchen that are suitable as winter food. If “Gschwellti” is on the menu, the number of potatoes should be rounded up generously; they are among the favorite foods of long-eared animals. The starchy tubers are healthy and, in addition to B vitamins and vitamin C, also provide secondary plant substances such as anthocyanins and flavonoids, which have an anti-inflammatory and immune-boosting effect. However, as always when feeding rabbits, do not overdo the amount.
Fresh salads are high on the popularity list. It’s best to stick to seasonal winter salads like endive and red radicchio. As cultivated forms of chicory, they both have effects similar to these: bitter substances and tannins stimulate digestion and appetite, help with upsets in the gastrointestinal tract, stimulate digestive juices, and strengthen the liver.
Rabbits like to eat leftovers from parsnips, turnips, sweet potatoes, celery, and also the skins and cores of fruit. Bananas and the leftovers from fresh pineapples are delicacies and may be given in small quantities. You should be careful with other exotic fruits, because some, such as avocado, are indigestible or even poisonous for rabbits. Vegetables and fruits that are not in season should also be avoided, as these are usually contaminated with pesticides.