RABBIT INFO!(lots of it!) As one would imagine, rabbits love to eat vegetables. They will eat almost anything that grows from the ground, but they especially love most veggies. Unfortunately, being herbivores, they also love to eat most of my houseplants and my palm trees in the backyard. As far as veggies go, the only ones I would avoid are cabbage (and cabbage related veggies) along with lettuce and asparagus. Cabbage is too gassy and can hurt them while celery is too stringy. Lettuce has no nutritional value at all and asparagus must be too pungent for them. They don't seem to like it. Rabbits do love carrots and carrot tops, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, spinach, bok choy, green peppers, radish tops, watercress, and cilantro. There is great debate about how much veggies rabbits should eat. Some maintain that veggies should not dominate the diet, and be used only 2 to 3 times per week. Others believe that rabbits need to eat veggies everyday.Given plenty of fresh food and water along with a clean, cool place to live, rabbits will generally stay healthy and can live for seven to ten years. Not subject to colds and other viral illnesses that dogs or cats frequently get, rabbits can get various bacterial infections from different sources. Those and some other illnesses are explained below in greater detail due to the severity involved when a rabbit does become ill. Contrary to popular belief, rabbits can overcome bacterial infections with proper treatment from a qualified exotic animal veterinarian. In treating a sick rabbit, there is absolutely no substitute for an exotic animal vet. who specializes in the care of rabbits. A general veterinarian is usually not a good choice to put your rabbit's safety in.In the wild, rabbits typically live single, solitary lives in underground burrows when they're not out and about. They usually occupy a few acres of land each, and they get to know every square inch of it. This is their main defense against predators. So, rabbits by nature, are territorial creatures and have a huge expanse of land to occupy. Understanding how rabbits live in the wild is further testimony that caging them is a crime against nature. Rabbits that are under three weeks old will rarely survive without mothers milk. There is just no way to duplicate what a mother rabbit has in her milk. There is something that keeps these youngsters alive that there is no substitute for. That's why rabbit breeders ususally breed their does at the same time. Then, if one has trouble feeding her young, another lactating female can help. Rabbits really need to stay with their mothers at the very least four weeks (eight weeks is optimal). I also learned that many people mistakenly think a mother is ignoring her young if they don't see her with them often. In reality, a mother may only nurse her young one or two times per day. So don't intervene at all unless the babies look sunken or dehydrated. Chances are, the mother is doing her job quite well. Most of my email comes from people who found a rabbits nest and didn't see the mother, so they took the babies in. Don't do this! Leave the nest alone.although i do it sometimes but ONLY to keep them warm in fall/winter or if there skinny! i'v had 2 rabbits like that but only 1 lived The mother is probably out there watching you. Again, unless the babies look dehydrated or sunken, the mother is probably feeding them. Again, if you find one stray baby rabbit, the best thing you can do (besides taking him/her in and out of danger) is to try to find the mother, or another lactating female (good luck)! If the rabbit turns out to be four weeks old or older, you may be able to save a life. The best thing to do is to keep the rabbit warm and feed it the kitten milk replacer. Important Statistics: Life Span..................................5 to 10 years, larger rabbits even longer Body Temperature.....................101.5 - 103 degrees Breeding Age.............................6 to 10 months Gestation Period........................29 - 35 days Litter Size.................................4 - 10 Weaning Age............................7 - 8 weeks