Bunny Probiotics

Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, veterinarian, diatician nor a health professional of any kind.  These are just my observations and thoughts. If you feed your rabbits poop and they die, or you get sick after eating your own fermentations, that's just sad.  Learn, start slow and make your own decisions only after careful study. If you can't trust yourself, then please find a professional and ignore me.

Anyone raising rabbits would benefit from fermenting their own sauerkraut, kimchee or maintaining a sourdough culture. The digestive process is exactly that, a fermentation laboratory. If the environment in the rabbit's gut gets thrown off their digestion will not be efficient and you've setup an environment where bad bacteria can take over. Humans have used fermented products for thousands of years and only recently decided they are disgusting due to the "germs" they contain. I've started regularly consuming live culture yogurt and fermented vegetables regularly and I'm healthier in my 50's than I've ever been. Sometimes learning a little knowledge and assuming we know everything is counter productive. There are reasons why some people get sick eating a meal and others don't. Could be immune system but often I suspect the culture in their gut.

Did you know that mother rabbits will leave probiotic capsules in the nest for the young to chew on? I saw a little 10 day old kit with eyes not yet fully open chewing away on mama's dropping. I suspect it helps build up their gut flora in preparation for digesting solid food. They start eating bits of their nest material about the same time. This all builds the culture in the bunny's gut to be able to digest various plants. The good bacteria growing inside will create an environment where it is more difficult for the bad boys to live.

One of the popular resent books on rabbit raising suggests regularly putting antibiotics in your rabbit's water to prevent coccidiosis and other digestive diseases. If you insist on following such advice (I never will), I'd be giving lots of probiotic paste, silage and high fiber feed to get the gut culture restarted afterward.  I might even avail to them a few "droppings" from a healthy rabbit to help get them kick started. Yea, I know, sacrilege. I'm just not one to believe everything I learned in health class and actually believe much of what we are taught about sanitation and keeping germ free is harmful. It sets us up for problems later.

Fermentation explains a problem I've had with young kits up to 2 weeks old in the extreme heat of Summer. They'd be fine, have fat bellies full of milk and be active and looking great, then just die. By the time I noticed any loss in vigor or diarrhea it was usually too late. It happened to the largest fastest growing kits, the greedy ones. Baby rabbits are not able to regulate their temperature well. Fermentation increases at higher temperatures. I suspect it's taking off too quick for the baby to handle. They have very sensitive digestive systems. Taking the babies in during the heat of the day and returning them in the evening completely solved the problem. After they are hopping around on their own, they seem to be able to regulate their body temperature better. I stop bring them in well before they reach the exploration stage and would be escaping and scampering around the house.  Only done this while they are young and sit quietly in a box with a little bedding snuggled together.

I'll write another article on how and what I feed to grow a healthy bacterial culture in my rabbits. Since taking this approach I rarely lose kits after weaning and rarely have digestive problems in any of my rabbits.