Love the Easter Bunny, but not in your garden? If you plant a patch of Swiss Chard away from your garden, bunny rabbits will be thrilled and content to eat the Swiss Chard rather than your garden. Make it a good size patch, if possible, as you want the rabbits (wild only) to have plenty of Swiss Chard to last as long as possible.
Do not feed domestic rabbits Swiss Chard or lettuce for that matter, as it will give them diarrhea and they will die. Wild rabbits are use to eating this type of foliage and don't get sick. Growing up on a rabbit farm, it was important that wild rabbit's not be hanging around the domestic rabbit's as they could bring disease. My father would always plant a field of Swiss Chard, way down in the north forty, so all the critters would be happy. Wild rabbit's stayed away from our gardens, close to the house, as well.
Wish I'd known this last summer. We were given a Zip-loc baggie full of Swiss Chard. We hated the leathery texture and strong flavor, and ended up tossing it.
I'd always read that the pellets that were fed to rabbits were meant to fatten them up for eating. We've always fed our rabbits lots of fresh veggies from our garden, including lettuce and chard, with no ill effects. My last rabbit lived to be almost 10 years old. But we did this from the time we got them, and did not change their diets abruptly--maybe that made a difference. We grew fresh clover for them and they ate a varied diet too. We also has fenced in spots where we let them run and dig, and they were safe from predators. We allowed them to roam freely in our garden whenever we were in the yard. They were always very happy and sweet pets. A favorite food were the leaves from kohlrabi plants.
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