Where nuggets fit in a rabbit's diet

A healthy rabbit diet is built on hay and grass, with herbs and forage and a measured portion of nuggets making up the rest. The split most widely used in the UK, and the one we follow, is roughly 85% hay or grass, 10% herbs and forage, and 5% nuggets.¹

Hay does most of the work. It supplies the long fibre that keeps the gut moving and wears down teeth that grow throughout a rabbit's life.¹ The remaining fresh portion of the diet adds variety, moisture and a wider range of nutrients. Nuggets sit at the smallest end of the plate, but they have a job worth understanding.

We don't recommend feeding large quantities of leafy greens or shop-bought vegetables. Instead, we suggest substituting traditional veg with herbs, forage and leaves such as basil, coriander, parsley, mint, dill, dandelion leaves, bramble, plantain, and the leafy tops of carrots and other plants. These are closer to what a rabbit would naturally browse on than a bowl of watery supermarket vegetables, and they are gentler on the digestion when offered in variety.

Why we don't support a nugget-free diet

The case for feeding no nuggets at all rests on how wild rabbits eat. A wild rabbit grazes across many plants and, over time, selects a mix that meets its needs, responding to its body and to whatever the season offers. It is a genuinely balanced diet, assembled by the rabbit itself across a varied landscape.

A house rabbit cannot do this. We cannot lay out the full range of grasses, herbs and plants a wild rabbit would browse across in a day, in the right proportions, every day of the year. Hay and a handful of herbs and forage cover a great deal, but small gaps in vitamins and minerals can open up over months. A measured portion of nuggets closes those gaps. Each nugget carries the same balance of vitamins and minerals, so the rabbit gets a consistent top-up rather than relying on a domestic salad bowl to happen to contain the right things.

Nuggets do not replace anything. Hay, grass, forage, herbs and leaves all remain essential and do the bulk of the feeding. Nuggets are a supplement that helps make sure the core nutritional requirements are met. That is the whole of their role, and it is why we treat them as a small but useful part of the diet rather than something to remove.

How much to feed

You may have heard the rule of an egg-cup of nuggets, twice a day, per rabbit. It is a reasonable starting point, and the RWAF uses it as a guide.² A more precise approach is to feed by weight: around 25g of nuggets per kilogram of body weight per day, split across a morning and evening feed.³

For a typical 2kg adult rabbit that works out at roughly 50g a day, or about one full egg-cup morning and evening. Dried nuggets are concentrated, so the right amount looks small.⁴ If it looks generous, it almost certainly is.

Two habits make the portion work harder. Weigh out the full day's nuggets in the morning, then split them, so treats and extras come out of that allowance rather than on top of it. And scatter the nuggets rather than tipping them in a bowl, which turns a thirty-second meal into foraging and slows everything down.⁴

Nuggets, pellets and muesli: what the words mean

The labels are used loosely, so it helps to be clear about what sits behind them.

A nugget (sometimes called a single-component or extruded food) combines all the ingredients into one uniform piece. Every nugget is the same, so a rabbit cannot pick out favourites and leave the rest. A pellet is similar in principle, usually cold-pressed rather than extruded. Both deliver consistent nutrition in every mouthful.⁵

A muesli is a loose mix of different-looking parts: flakes, grains, pellets, sometimes dried fruit or peas. The problem is selective feeding. Rabbits pick out the sweeter, starchier pieces and leave the fibrous ones, so they never get the balanced diet on the label. An 18-month study by the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies and Burgess Pet Care linked muesli diets to selective feeding and to problems including dental disease, obesity and changes in droppings that point to poorer gut health, even when hay was offered alongside.⁶ Following that research, retailers including Pets at Home withdrew muesli from sale.⁶ The RWAF, the PDSA and the major manufacturers all now steer owners away from muesli and towards nuggets.^1,4

What good nutritional numbers look like

When you read the analytical constituents on a bag, a few figures tell you most of what you need. The bands below reflect widely used guidance for the maintenance of healthy adult house rabbits.⁷ Growing rabbits under about seven months need more protein, calcium and fat, so junior foods sit deliberately outside these adult bands.

No single number makes a food good or bad on its own. A nugget fed at 5% of the diet, alongside plenty of hay, has a smaller effect than the same numbers would suggest if it were the whole diet. Use the bands to compare like with like, not to rule products in or out by one decimal place.

Brand comparison: nuggets, mixes and forage foods

This compares the nuggets we stock alongside other popular UK foods we don't, so you can find what you feed now and see where it sits. Figures are the manufacturers' published analytical constituents, cross-checked against independent comparison charts where available.^7,8 Foods are grouped by who they are for, then ordered by crude fibre, highest first, since fibre is the figure that matters most.

The fibre column is colour-coded so the ranking is easy to read at a glance.

Adult maintenance nuggets and mixes

Mature and senior nuggets

Junior and dwarf nuggets

Young and dwarf rabbits have higher metabolic rates and growing bodies, so these foods carry more protein, fat and calcium by design. The adult bands above do not apply to them, so the fibre colours are not shown here.

High-fibre forage food

This sits a little apart from the nuggets above. It is a hay-based forage stick rather than a conventional nugget, with a nutritional profile close to hay itself.

Choosing the right nugget for your rabbit

With the numbers in front of you, the choice usually comes down to a few practical questions rather than chasing the single "best" bag.

Match the life stage. Feed an adult food to an adult rabbit, a junior food to a growing one, and consider a mature formula once a rabbit reaches its senior years. Feeding a high-protein junior food to an adult is one of the more common mistakes.⁴

Consider the living situation. Indoor rabbits get less natural daylight, so an indoor formula with added vitamin D can help. A rabbit prone to weight gain may suit a light formula, and a rabbit that turns its nose up at hay may benefit from a high-fibre forage food alongside its hay.

Favour fibre and a grass-first recipe. All else being equal, the higher the fibre and the closer the first ingredient is to grass or hay, the better the match to a rabbit's digestion.

Change foods gradually. If you switch brands, or move from a muesli to a nugget, do it over two to four weeks, mixing a little more of the new food in each day. A sudden change can upset a rabbit's digestion.⁴