Celery is a popular vegetable for both humans and rabbits. It’s easy to find all year long in supermarkets and produce stands. It’s delicious and nutritious for humans and a safe food to share with your rabbit. They’ll probably love it! Bunnies like celery for the same reasons we do: It’s a crunchy, healthy, juicy snack.
Celery appeals to rabbits for several reasons. Rabbits are herbivores, so almost anything plant-based is fair game to them. Raw celery is a fibrous vegetable that requires a great deal of effort to chew. When it comes to chewing, rabbits love a challenge. The high water content of celery makes it a refreshing treat. Compared to most other rabbit food, celery has a large amount of sugar. It’s hard to imagine celery tasting like candy, but to rabbits, it does.
Vegetables are an important part of any rabbit’s diet, along with hay, fruit, and pellets. The ideal rabbit diet is mostly hay, with two or three kinds of vegetables, a small portion of pellets, and a little bit of fruit. Celery fulfills their need for veggies nicely.
Rabbits can eat both the leaves and stalks of celery. If you grow your own celery or purchase it directly from a farm, you may encounter celery flowers. The flowers aren’t especially good for rabbits, so you should cut those off before feeding your rabbit celery. You should never feed your rabbit celery seeds because they have too much fat and protein compared to what your rabbit needs.
Most veterinarians who specialize in rabbits say that you should feed your pet three different kinds of vegetables per day to help keep their diets balanced. Half of a stalk of celery is the right size portion for your average adult rabbit.
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There’s one precaution that you should be aware of before adding celery to your rabbit’s diet. Always make sure to cut celery into inch-long chunks before serving it. The long strands of string that line each stalk of celery can be harmful or even deadly. If you’ve ever eaten a raw stalk of celery, you’re familiar with these strings. Getting them caught between your teeth is uncomfortable. For rabbits, who can’t clean their teeth as easily as we can, it can lead to painful tooth infections. Longer strings can get stuck in your bun’s stomach. Shorter pieces mean there’s a much lower risk of these strings causing your rabbit any trouble.
Celery is a healthy food for your rabbit. It contains fiber, folic acid, potassium, and other vitamins and minerals that are key to your bun’s health. Fiber is the most important piece of a rabbit’s diet. They should get most of their daily fiber needs from eating hay. While you can’t replace hay with celery, you can supplement it.
Fiber is a big deal to bunnies for two reasons. Their digestive systems are built to handle roughage. Too little fiber can lead to stomach issues and elimination trouble. Fiber’s other important role deals with your rabbit’s teeth. The thick, chewable stems of fiber-rich foods wear down their teeth to keep them at a manageable length. If they grow too long, they can become painful and infected.
Rabbits don’t usually eat celery in the wild. Not because they don’t like it, but because they generally don’t have access to it. Celery naturally grows in marshy soil, while rabbits tend to live in forests and meadows. If you grow celery in your own backyard garden, though, you shouldn’t be surprised to find a wild rabbit having a taste.
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Celery is often considered one of the healthiest foods for a pet rabbit. If you’re not feeding your rabbit celery already, you should consider adding it to their diet a few times a week. Your rabbit will appreciate having a crunchy, sweet treat.
