How much a rabbit should eat each day by weight and age: pellets in tablespoons and cups, chopped greens, the cap on carrots and fruit, water, and a 30-day pellet supply.
Rabbit Food Calculator - Pellets, Greens and Water a Day
How much a rabbit should eat each day by weight and age: pellets in tablespoons and cups, chopped greens, the cap on carrots and fruit, water, and a 30-day pellet supply.
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A rabbit's daily menu, sized to its weight
Type the weight of your rabbit, pick its age, and the rabbit food calculator lays out the whole day: pellets in tablespoons and cups, chopped vegetables, the cap on carrots and fruit, and how much water a rabbit that size drinks. Hay never gets a number, because it should never run out. Add the weight of one cup of your pellets and you also get the monthly amount in pounds.
Six boxes, two of them optional
- Weight - from a kitchen scale is best. Hold the rabbit on a bathroom scale and subtract your own weight if it will not sit still on a small one.
- Unit - pounds or kilograms. Every result is still printed in cups, tablespoons and fluid ounces.
- Age - six stages from the House Rabbit Society schedule. Under 7 months pellets are free-fed, from 7 months they are measured.
- Body condition - optional. Overweight keeps the pellets at the low end, underweight widens the range upward. It only applies from 1 year.
- Number of rabbits - optional, for a bonded pair or a group of similar weight. The daily table stays per rabbit, the totals scale.
- Weight of one cup of pellets - optional, in ounces. Weigh one level cup of your brand once and the monthly supply comes out in pounds.
The four food groups, mapped
Rabbit diets in the US are built on a short set of rules from the House Rabbit Society, the rescue and education group whose diet page most rabbit vets point owners to, with the Merck Veterinary Manual giving a second figure for pellets and the reference value for water. Each food group has its own role and its own limit:
Two things fall outside the map on purpose. Hay has no quantity, so the calculator never prints one. And treats beyond fruit, such as yogurt drops or pellet mixes with seeds and corn, are not part of the plan at all; the House Rabbit Society advises against pellets with those mixed in.
How much to feed a rabbit by weight
This is the adult column of the calculator for eight body weights, one rabbit, no body condition chosen. Pellets show the range from the House Rabbit Society figure to the Merck figure; vegetables are the minimum, non-leafy vegetables and fruit are caps.
| Rabbit weight | Pellets a day | Vegetables, at least | Non-leafy, up to | Fruit, up to | Water |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 lb (0.91 kg) | 1.3 to 1.6 tbsp | 0.67 cup | 1.0 tbsp | 1.0 tsp | 3.7 fl oz |
| 3 lb (1.36 kg) | 2.0 to 2.4 tbsp | 1.00 cup | 1.5 tbsp | 1.5 tsp | 5.5 fl oz |
| 4 lb (1.81 kg) | 2.7 to 3.2 tbsp | 1.33 cups | 2.0 tbsp | 2.0 tsp | 7.4 fl oz |
| 6 lb (2.72 kg) | 4.0 to 4.8 tbsp | 2.00 cups | 3.0 tbsp | 3.0 tsp | 11.0 fl oz |
| 8 lb (3.63 kg) | 5.3 to 6.4 tbsp | 2.67 cups | 4.0 tbsp | 4.0 tsp | 14.7 fl oz |
| 10 lb (4.54 kg) | 6.7 to 8.0 tbsp | 3.33 cups | 5.0 tbsp | 5.0 tsp | 18.4 fl oz |
| 12 lb (5.44 kg) | 8.0 to 9.6 tbsp | 4.00 cups | 6.0 tbsp | 6.0 tsp | 22.1 fl oz |
| 15 lb (6.80 kg) | 10.0 to 12.0 tbsp | 5.00 cups | 7.5 tbsp | 7.5 tsp | 27.6 fl oz |
A cup holds 16 tablespoons, so 4.0 to 4.8 tbsp for a 6 lb rabbit is 0.25 to 0.30 cup. Most owners find a tablespoon easier to level than a quarter cup, which is why the result leads with it.
Six life stages, six feeding rules
The age box changes more than the numbers. Below 7 months the question is not how much pellet, but which foods are on the menu at all. This is the House Rabbit Society schedule the calculator follows:
| Age | Pellets | Hay | Vegetables and fruit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 7 weeks | nibbles from 3 weeks, open access from 4 weeks | alfalfa, same timing | none, mother's milk is the main food |
| 7 to 12 weeks | unlimited | unlimited | none yet |
| 12 weeks to 7 months | unlimited | unlimited | one new vegetable at a time, under 1/2 oz |
| 7 months to 1 year | 1/2 cup per 6 lb | switch to grass hays, less alfalfa | build up gradually |
| 1 to 5 years | 1/4 cup per 6 lb (to 1/4 cup per 5 lb) | unlimited grass hay | at least 2 cups per 6 lb |
| 6 years and older | adult amount while weight holds; frail rabbits may need more | unlimited grass hay | as for adults |
The jump from unlimited pellets to a measured portion at 7 months is the single biggest change in a rabbit's diet. A 4 lb young adult drops to 5.3 tbsp a day, and a year later, at the adult rate, to 2.7 to 3.2 tbsp. Hay fills the gap.
Five rabbits run through the calculator
What the numbers say once they sit side by side
Everything scales in a straight line with weight. A 12 lb rabbit gets exactly twice what a 6 lb rabbit gets, from pellets to water, so there is no special rule for dwarf or giant breeds; the scale does the work.
The pellet range is narrow. The two published figures, 1/4 cup per 6 lb and 1/4 cup per 5 lb, differ by only 20%, less than one tablespoon for a 6 lb rabbit. Choosing a body condition matters more than which source you trust.
Water is easy to underestimate. A 6 lb rabbit drinks about 327 mL a day at Merck's 120 mL per kg, close to 1.4 cups, which Merck notes is about double what a dog or cat of the same size is usually estimated to drink. Rabbits on lots of wet greens drink less from the bowl, so the figure is a reference, not a target to force.
Rabbit feeding questions, answered with numbers
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