It is really easy to take water for granted. We don’t tend to think of water as a nutrient for meat rabbits, at least not in the way we think of pellets, hay, and other food sources. We know that rabbits need it, but we tend to overlook it as a nutrient and as a part of a feed program per se.
Rabbit water is a cheap, often thought of as a free, nutrient. It isn’t a source of dietary fat, protein, or fiber. For most of us, we have a water supply for our home, so we think of water as abundant, too. This makes it easy to overlook as a nutrient and dietary resource.
Water is, however, the most critical element of a meat rabbit’s feed program. Like us, rabbits can live without food for much longer than they can live without water.
There are some interesting things to know about rabbits and water that might help you understand its role better, and inform how you manage water in your rabbitry.
Jump to:
- Water: “The single most important nutrient”
- Sources of Dietary Water: Where Water Comes from in the Rabbit Diet
- VIDEO: The Single Most Important Nutrient for Meat Rabbits
- How Much Water Do Meat Rabbits Need?
- Ways Rabbits Lose Water
- Water Quality Matters
- Water Temperature Can Encourage (or Discourage) Rabbits from Drinking
- What Are Some Effects of Inadequate Water Consumption in Rabbits?
- When and What Might Change Meat Rabbits’ Water Consumption?
- Good Facts to Know About the Function, Consumption, and Importance of Water in the Rabbit Diet
Water: “The single most important nutrient”
The University of Michigan points out that water is, in fact, a part of the rabbit’s diet, and it is actually a nutrient. Water can also be a source of important minerals and can provide some of the minerals that are essential to the rabbit’s diet.
They go as far as to say, “Water is the single most important nutrient to rabbits and other animals.”
When you think about it, that’s true. Rabbits cannot live for long without water.
Sources of Dietary Water: Where Water Comes from in the Rabbit Diet
We usually think that rabbits get water from a water source -- whether natural or, more likely, from the water that we give to them every day.
The reality is that yes, rabbits get most of their water from their daily water source (usually us). But there are other places where rabbits get smaller amounts of water.
The three primary sources of water for rabbits are:
- Drinking water
- Water in food
- Metabolic water
Drinking water is, of course, the main event, and rabbits rely on us to provide plenty of good, clean drinking water. They can access only a small percentage of their needs from the other two sources.
All rabbit food contains at least some water. (Similar to how we get some water from our food, depending on what we are eating.) Moist greens and forage will have a higher water content; even pellets and dry food have a small, trace amount of water that, while not enough to provide for their total needs, is helpful and contributes to rabbit hydration.
Metabolic water is water that is produced in the rabbit’s body as a product of chemical reactions from the various bodily processes that go on inside a rabbit.
For all intents and purposes, we can ignore metabolic water and water from food. The focus is always on supplied drinking water. With a good supply of drinking water, your rabbits will fill in what they don’t get from the other two small sources.
VIDEO: The Single Most Important Nutrient for Meat Rabbits
How Much Water Do Meat Rabbits Need?
As a measurement, the amount of water that your rabbits drink can vary. A good way to think of it is that rabbits under normal conditions will drink two to three times more water than feed.
So, if you feed 8 ounces of pellets per rabbit per day, you should provide at least 24 ounces of water daily.
- 8 ounces equals one cup
- 24 ounces equals 3 cups
- 4 times the feed amount is a better measure for water capacity, since consumption may be as high as four times the feed intake in hot or humid weather
Keep in mind, this measure is per rabbit.
- If you have cages with more than one rabbit, provide three to four times the amount of feed in water for each rabbit
If you are looking for a simple guide for the amount of water ro give to your rabbits, plan on
- 1 quart of water per day per adult rabbit
- 2 cups of water per day per weaned kit
- 1 gallon of water per day for a nursing doe with a litter of kits
The best thing to do is to always have water in front of your rabbits. It is critical that you at least check the water when the heat is very high. Not only will rabbits drink the water, but they also may spill it or lean against water bottles and drinking nipples and drip the water out. Nipples can drip on their own.
A loss of as little as 10% of a rabbit’s body water can result in death!
Ways Rabbits Lose Water
Digestion is not the only way that rabbits lose water. Rabbits are constantly losing water through their various bodily processes, and so they need to be able to constantly resupply it.
Rabbits lose water through
- Waste (feces and urine)
- Breathing/respiration and
- Evaporation from panting
Rabbits don’t lose water through perspiration because they don’t sweat. They cool themselves through a process of radiation through the blood vessels of the ears. However, this relies heavily on good circulation and blood flow, which relies heavily on excellent hydration.
Water Quality Matters
Rabbits like fresh water. If a rabbit’s water is stale or not clean, the rabbit will drink less of it. This is why fresh, clean water daily is important.
It is also important that rabbits have open, liquid water every day. While they will lick ice in the wintertime, they still need access to plenty of liquid water so they can drink their fair share.
Sources of unclean water may be the water source itself. Water will get “stale” just by sitting in crocks, bottles, or drip supply containers for too long. A daily water change will keep the water fresher and will encourage your rabbits to drink more. This can have a direct effect on fertility, health, and growth rate.
Water Temperature Can Encourage (or Discourage) Rabbits from Drinking
The temperature of the water can either encourage or discourage your rabbits from drinking more (or less). The best temperature of water isn’t always the same, either, because what they prefer changes depending on the weather and temperature they’re dealing with.
- Rabbits don’t care for water that is near freezing (at or around 32℉ or 0℃ or above 90℉ or 32.22℃)
- Aim to keep water between 40 and 70℉ (4.44 to 21.11℃)
- On warm or hot days, rabbits like cold water best
- Adding ice cubes to water can cool water to make it more enjoyable and more palatable for your rabbits (and it may provide some cooling relief, too)
- On cold days, rabbits prefer and will drink more warm water (but not hot)
This may sound complicated, but suffice it to say that you should provide cool to cold water in the summer and tepid to warm water in the winter. If you do that, your rabbits should be content enough.
Of course, you won’t be able to keep water at the same temperature throughout the day unless you are constantly changing or replacing it. Do the best you can to provide water at the most appropriate temperature for the weather when you do water, and keep open water available the rest of the time.
What Are Some Effects of Inadequate Water Consumption in Rabbits?
- Dehydration
- Not moving food through the gut, resulting in GI stasis
- Inability to absorb nutrients
- Poor digestion
- Poor waste removal
- Inability to regulate body temperature
- Overheating
- Difficulty staying warm enough in winter
- Inability to produce enough milk for young kits in nursing does
- Mastitis in nursing does
- Death
When and What Might Change Meat Rabbits’ Water Consumption?
It’s good to know the baseline needs of your meat rabbits so you know how much water you need to provide for them, at least as a minimum amount. That amount can change throughout the year, though.
Weather and temperatures certainly have an impact, but there are other things that might change how much water your meat rabbits drink. These can include:
- An increase in warmer weather
- Significantly higher consumption during periods of high heat (perhaps as much as four times more water than feed)
- High humidity
- A change in feed (can be up or down if the feed offers more or less moisture)
- Temperature of the water (preference of water temperature and consumption can change depending on the environmental temperature)
- If a doe is pregnant
- If a doe is nursing
- Cages with litters of kits
- Increase in consumption as kits grow
Good Facts to Know About the Function, Consumption, and Importance of Water in the Rabbit Diet
Here are a few final interesting -- and useful -- tidbits of information regarding water and meat rabbits:
- About two-thirds of a rabbit’s body is made up of water
- Water is important for digestion, nutrient absorption, and waste removal
- Water plays a very important role in helping rabbits regulate their body temperature -- at all times of the year (normal rabbit body temperature is 102 to 103 ℉ or 38.89 to 39.44℃)
- Rabbits need to intake water often enough and in enough volume to replace water loss and build new tissues and blood
- Water also provides essential minerals
- Rabbits can lose half their body muscle and still live, but cannot survive more than a 10% loss of water
- A rabbit can easily die in just one day without water
- Rabbits need to drink frequently on cold and freezing days, too; if their water freezes and they can only drink once per day, they often drink too much cold water at one time
- Drinking a lot of cold water all at once can cause them to put more of their feed energy into warming the water and maintaining body temperature
- This can result in rabbits eating more in the winter, but gaining less, even with the increased food intake
- Drinking less water than they should can cause slow growth rates
- Drinking less can also be a cause of reproductive problems
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