While rabbits should mostly be eating hay and rabbit pellets, they do need a few fruits and vegetables thrown in throughout the week. Usually, you can take any vegetables you’re having and give a couple to your bunny.
However, some vegetables can be harmful to your rabbit or are ones they should only eat in small doses. If you’re wondering if radishes are safe or not for you’re bunny, you’ve come to the right article. Keep reading below to find out, “Can rabbits eat radishes?”
Can Rabbits Eat Radishes?
Radishes are perfectly safe for a rabbit to eat. In fact, all parts of a radish are fine for a rabbit to eat, including the stems, roots, and leaves.
However, just because a rabbit can eat it doesn’t mean they will. Radishes, if you never had one, are peppery. Some rabbits may not like the flavor and avoid the taste. Even if your rabbit does like the taste of radishes, sometimes the spicy, peppery taste can lead to digestive issues.
Additionally, some people say to feed rabbits radish tops in limited quantities. Like with broccoli or Brussels sprouts, it can cause stomach pain and gas. While this is normal in most animals, excessive gas can cause problems with a rabbit’s intestines.
It’s also important to introduce only one new thing to a rabbit at a time. Changing up too much of your rabbit’s diet can cause intestinal distress and lead to pain or even death if it’s serious enough.
For all of the reasons above, while you can feed your bunny a radish, it’s a good idea to do so in moderation. Only give them one or two radishes a day. If you are planning to eat the roots yourself, you can give your rabbit a fair amount of the radish tops a week.
Like all fruits and vegetables, your rabbit needs to have them raw. Don’t cook any radishes or any part of the radish before feeding them to your rabbit. It leaches the nutrients and cuts a lot of the health benefits that rabbits get from eating them.
Finally, no matter what you feed your rabbit as a snack, you need to keep proportions in mind. About 80 percent of a rabbit’s diet needs to be hay and some pellets. This leaves you 20 percent of your rabbit’s daily diet to explore other snacks, like fruits and vegetables. Radishes, though a healthy vegetable, should never take up a significant portion of your rabbit’s diet.
