Rabbits flourish with a good diet of the foods they need along with lots of tasty treats that they love. You may be wondering about frozen vegetables for your furry friend as a lovely snack. And yes, rabbits can definitely eat frozen veggies and they love them too.
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The Benefits of Frozen Vegetables
A great benefit of feeding your rabbit frozen veggies is that you can store the wonderful snacks in your freezer and they won’t go bad before they are fed to him. Fresh vegetables will only have a certain shelf life or can only be stored in the refrigerator for so long before they begin to spoil–and you certainly won’t feed spoiled food to your family or your rabbit.
Frozen vegetables are usually flash frozen so they don’t all stick together with ice crystals in a bag. This makes taking out just a few from a bag very simple for a bunny snack. You can then put the remaining veggies in a food storage bag and it is resealable and toss them back in the freezer.
This technique of giving your rabbit a great variety of foods will cause no waste whatsoever–unless your bunny decides he doesn’t like a particular vegetable, but this is quite rare. Most all rabbits love trying new foods with different textures and tastes.
Another benefit of frozen vegetables is that they provide some extra water content to your rabbit’s diet. This is an important item for their health as it helps their kidney and bladder function to keep them in tip-top condition. The extra moisture content also aids in their super-fast digestive system as well, so they don’t get constipated.
How Much Frozen Vegetables Should I Feed My Rabbit?
The majority of your rabbit’s diet should always be some sort of grass hay. It’s rich in vitamins D and A as well as calcium and your furry friend needs this for good digestive health. You can use different variations in the types of hay to mix it up for your bunny. You can try timothy, oat hay, and orchard hay and keep it available to your rabbit 24/7, as rabbits love to eat fresh greens.
Your rabbit should also have pellets for his food source that are packed full of all the nutrients he needs. Rabbit pellets should be fed at about 2 tablespoons per day for every 2 pounds of your rabbit’s weight.
The maximum amount of frozen veggies for your bunny should be about 1 cup per every 2 pounds of weight on a daily basis. You can divide this up into a few meals per day so your rabbit will eat the more important items that he should have for good growth, such as his hay and pellets.
Frozen or even fresh vegetables are not a substitute for your rabbit’s pelleted food. Just as in humans, most of all the vegetables that humans eat can be fed to your furry friend, but always in moderation for good health.
Are There Frozen Vegetables to Avoid for My Rabbit?
Keep in mind that the vegetables themselves are healthy, but some different types are a definite no-no for your bunny. Grocery stores have a large variety of frozen vegetables that may have a tasty sauce of some kind on them and humans love these, but your rabbit should only have plain raw vegetables that are frozen without any seasoning at all.
We hear that sea salt is good for humans, but it’s dangerous for rabbits. Rabbits should also not be fed frozen vegetables with any additional butter or sugar added to them. Sugar and salt are not part of a wild rabbit’s diet and these things may seem like a good treat for your friend, but it’s best to avoid these things so as not to cause digestive upset.
You know how rabbits love their crunchy foods? Well, your rabbit will be delighted with frozen vegetables that are nutritious and packed full of crunches in every bite as well. It’s also good for his teeth because they never stop growing.
Broccoli and cauliflower (see also ‘Can Rabbits Eat Cauliflower?‘) are two vegetables that can cause gas buildup in your rabbit and interrupt his digestive system. Rabbits don’t expel gas as humans do and it can make your four-legged friend very ill as well as cause severe diarrhea. You can still try these in the form of frozen vegetables, but only a tiny bit at a time to see if your particular rabbit tolerates it.
What Kind of Frozen Vegetables Should I Feed My Rabbit?
Always remember that almost anything that is green will be a great addition to your rabbit’s diet. Frozen mustard greens, turnip greens, and collard greens are among the favorites of a rabbit. The leafy greens are packed with nutrients for great health.
Another excellent treat for rabbits is frozen celery (see also ‘Can Rabbits Eat Celery?‘). It has a lot of flavors and a lot of crunch and, since rabbits can’t have sugary foods, it is like a sweet snack for them. Frozen carrots are another favorite among rabbits, large and small for their sweetness and crunchiness.
You can try your rabbit on frozen bell peppers, cabbage, crussel sprouts, green peas and green beans and parsnips.
How to Feed Rabbits Frozen Vegetables
Pet rabbits can be much like human toddlers at times and can even have a temper tantrum at some point if things don’t go as planned. You wouldn’t place a plate of nutritious food for a meal in front of a child and also have a dish of ice cream put out at the same time. We all know that the child will eat the dessert first and then leave the food on the plate. The same idea goes for your rabbit and his frozen vegetables, which he sees as a tasty treat.
To start your rabbit on eating frozen vegetables, you can divide the daily portion by its weight into three different feedings per day. This will help you to make certain that he tolerates the vegetables well by only having a tiny portion at a time. Start with just one frozen vegetable and then you can try another while watching him closely with each new vegetable to make sure he likes and tolerates it.
For example, there are many combinations of frozen vegetables that rabbits love. You most likely have given your rabbit fresh carrots before, so frozen carrots should be fine for him. You can find stir-fry starters, Asian vegetables, California blends and a huge host of other frozen vegetables with a mixture of flavors in them. These provide lots of variety for your rabbit and they are all in one bag too. Just keep in mind that you shouldn’t want to feed him vegetables that are already cooked and then frozen because they don’t have as many nutrients in them or very sweet vegetables such as sweet potatoes or corn.
The best idea is to put the frozen vegetables in small portions in the same food bowl with the rabbit pellets and mix them up together. This will most likely ensure that your smarty-pants rabbit won’t just pick out the lovely veggies and leave the pellets in the bowl which are specially formulated with all the vitamins and minerals he needs on a daily basis.
If your rabbit is still picking the frozen vegetables out of the pellets, you can try hiding them in his hay or grass so he has to forage around for them or cut them into tiny pieces so it’s hard to get just the veggies without the pellets.
Final Thoughts
Frozen vegetables are a very good treat for your rabbit in moderation as they may even have more nutrition in them than fresh vegetables that spent quite a bit of time in transportation before arriving at your local grocery store. Small frozen vegetables, such as English peas, can also make great treats when you are training your furry friend as he will see it as a great incentive to learn new things.
Further Reading: Can Rabbits Eat Nasturtiums?