3. “Pellets should be 20–25% crude fiber.” Crude fiber is an outdated, blunt metric. It does not reflect fermentability or gut function. Modern nutrition uses NDF/ADF. You can hit 20% crude fiber and still have a poor gut profile. This is textbook oversimplification. 4. Vegetable list as a core diet component. This is management advice, not nutritional science. Vegetables contribute water and some micronutrients, but they are inconsistent, low-density, and can destabilize the cecum if overused. The “add one at a time, remove if soft stool” line is reactive because the base recommendation is already unstable.

7. Transition chart (alfalfa → grass hay, reduce pellets) This is ideology, not evidence. There is no biological requirement to shift to grass hay dominance. The only required shift is from growth formulation → maintenance formulation. The hay emphasis is cultural, not scientific. 8. “¼ cup pellets per day for an average rabbit” This is one of the worst offenders. Fixed volume feeding ignores body weight, metabolic rate, production status, and genetics. Intake should be based on grams per kg body weight and condition scoring, not a kitchen scoop.

A treasure trove of bad veterinary advice made the rounds in a pet group recently. These screenshots are from a flyer that a clinic is still handing out to rabbit owners. The problem is that most of the information is 30+ years out of date and doesn’t reflect current research or real-world feeding outcomes. I’ll be doing a point-by-point breakdown in 18 points, confirming what holds up and debunking what doesn’t. Let's start with nutrition. Claim :1 “A sound diet consists of hay, pellets, and vegetables.” Response: a pet-model assumption, not a biological requirement. A complete pelleted ration already meets macro/micronutrient needs. Hay and vegetables are optional management tools, not mandatory dietary pillars. Decades of controlled feeding trials (Lebas, de Blas, Gidenne) are built on complete feeds, not hay-heavy diets. Claim 2. “Hay is essential… reduces GI problems.” Response: Not accurate. Fiber is essential. Hay is one source of fiber, and an inconsistent one. What matters is fermentable fiber fractions (NDF/ADF balance), not loose hay intake. Properly formulated pellets provide controlled fiber that stabilizes cecal fermentation more reliably than variable hay quality. Next part tomarrow. For a deeper dive go check out the nutrition course and ask questions on Google classroom.

This is one of those posts people don’t like to write, but they need to be written anyway. Viki aborted at day 26. By the time I got to her, I already knew what I was walking into. The kits had been dead for days—likely around day 21–23—and she was now stuck trying to pass them. Water had already broken, and she was covered in that rank, sour smell that tells you things have gone wrong long before you got there. At that point, you don’t stand there hoping it fixes itself. You get to work. I cleaned her up first—chlorhexidine around the vulva just to get ahead of the contamination as much as possible—then gloved up and started checking. Palpation, checking the canal, making sure nothing was lodged. You have to know what’s in there before you start pushing anything. If something’s stuck and you force contractions, you’ll tear her up. She was already sitting in infection risk, so I gave Penicillin G. This is why we keep a relationship with a vet and keep meds on hand—because there’s no time to go hunting for it when you’re standing in the middle of something like this. Once I knew nothing was blocking, I used oxytocin to help her clear. Tiny dose. Wait. Watch. Recheck. She needed a second round before everything finally started moving the way it should. While all of this was going on, I was trying to keep her steady. I mixed up a slurry—crushed Tums, sugar, probiotics, and added a little plain yogurt to make it something she’d actually take. I syringed about 6 cc into her cheek pocket first, just to make sure something got into her, then offered the rest in an eggshell. She took to the shell on her own—chewing, licking at it, getting a little more calcium in her system without me having to force it. Sometimes that’s the difference. Getting them to participate instead of just fighting them. Because when they’re under that kind of strain, they can crash fast. If calcium drops, contractions weaken. If contractions weaken, nothing clears. And then you’re in real trouble.

Test results are back — NEGATIVE. So at this time, it’s business as usual. I want to acknowledge and thank every rabbitry that chose to self-quarantine out of respect for the community and out of an abundance of caution. That’s what responsible animal management looks like. Those are the people I’ll remember and continue to support. I’ll also be noting the rabbitries that prioritized biosecurity over harassment while we were waiting on results. Now, on a serious note: It has come to my attention that someone has been harassing the state vet in Oklahoma, calling multiple times a day and pretending to be the rabbitry that submitted the samples. Because of that interference, the actual rabbitry was not properly notified of their own results. That is unacceptable. This kind of behavior undermines disease response, delays communication, and puts the entire community at risk. If you care about rabbits, you don’t interfere with the people handling testing and reporting. Going forward: If there is a credible concern, report it While waiting on results, quarantine and use biosecurity And let the appropriate channels do their job We got a negative this time. That’s a good outcome. Let’s act like we want to keep it that way.