Diet in rabbits is one of those controversial topics it seems. Some people believe one thing and one thing only and will criticize anyone who doesn't feed the same way they do.

I'm going to post my personal experience with feeding rabbits.

-It is a common belief that rabbits have to be constantly eating. I have found through processing meat rabbits that a rabbit that is fed once a day still has a large amount of food in it's stomach after 24/hr of withholding feed before processing. I feed my rabbits a measured amount of feed once a day they're active, they're healthy, and they're fit. This is what works for me.

-Commercial pellets are cheaper because they're not wholesome enough for rabbits. I'm one of those people who reads the ingredients list on all rabbit feeds whether it's from a farm store, pet store, or grocery store.  I have yet to find a pet rabbit pellet that can compete with the nutritional value of a commercial feed. More often than not I wouldn't touch pellets being sold in the pet market. They never have a decent protein or fibre count and it's full of sugars and filler ingredients that rabbits shouldn't eat. I have also found through processing rabbits that those who were raised on pet quality pellets have disgusting insides (Large amounts of fat, greasy, smelly) where as those rabbits raised on commercial pellets have perfectly healthy insides.

-Rabbit have to eat hay. If you're feeding pellets, rabbits do not have to eat hay. The pellet itself is about 90% hay. I don't feed my rabbits loose hay and I haven't done so in a while. I give them hay cubes on occasion but most just play with them instead of eating them. And guess what? My rabbits aren't dead. They're active, they're healthy, and they reproduce fine. I find hay just makes a mess, it gets wasted, and more often than not it can contain moulds that are harmful to rabbits.

-Rabbits have to have fruits and vegetables as part of their diet. No, just, no. As treats on occasion, sure. As a main part of their diet no.

To sell or not to sell.

I've seen it happen a lot in the past 10 years of raising rabbits. Some breeders get out of one breed because there is no longer a pet market for them and then get into another breed for a bit and then get out of those because the pet market has become tougher to sell in. The question is why? Why does a pet market go from being easy to sell in to difficult? What happened?

The simple answer is supply and demand. If you mass produce rabbits to sell as pets then you're going to fill up that demand quickly. Thus there will be fewer people interested in buying. There are always going to be certain breeds that are more popular then others such as Netherland Dwarfs, Mini Rex, and Holland Lops but if you get several breeders in one area specifically breeding for pets even the market for those breeds will decrease drastically.  With a flooded market you also get a lot of people trying to re-home pets, usually for ridiculously low prices which gives people the impression that a pet is something cheap and easily disposable once you're board of it. This causes a chain reaction for breeders whose first focus is producing show animals. They can no longer sell their occasional pet quality for a decent price because suddenly no one wants to pay more then $5 for a rabbit and they're also the ones blamed for the "over population" This is also how peoples view of certain breeds becomes completely distorted. I've had people tell me my BIS winning Mini Rex was not actually a Mini Rex because they had a Mini Rex so they knew what they were talking about.

I'll be totally honest I do not believe rabbits should purposefully be bred to produce only pets.  I believe there are enough substandard rabbits produced through intentional show quality breedings that substandard rabbits shouldn't be bred on purpose. Anyone can breed a rabbit it takes actual skill and dedication to breed and produce a decent show quality rabbit.

I personally choose not to sell pet rabbits because of a lack of decent information available to pet owners. All information that I have found catered specifically to pet owners is horribly one sided and not actually backed up with real research. I've also seen "rabbit savvy vets" take advantage of people who don't know better. Often time rabbits are mishandled and end up scratching someone which makes them "bad" and gets them re-homed. None of which is fair to the rabbit.