Rabbit Vitamin

Vitamins are chemical substances required in minute quantities for the maintenance of health.

Vitamin A (or substances from which the rabbit can manufacture it) is found in green foodstuffs and in fish liver oils. A deficiency may cause various nervous disorders. There is also some evidence that rabbits fed on rations which are deficient in this vitamin become more susceptible to certain diseases. The normal rations of the rabbit are however not deficient, and therefore trouble from a deficiency of this vitamin is unlikely.

Vitamins of the B group are also found in fresh green foods and in oil seeds and cakes. Further the bacterial population of the caecum manufactures these vitamins. Thus it is unlikely that any deficiency would normally occur. There have however been reports of poor growth and reproductive failures due to a lack of these vitamins.

Vitamin C is found widely in green foodstuffs and is furthermore synthesized by the rabbit itself. No deficiency is therefore possible.

Vitamin D deficiency may cause severe rickets and lowered growth, and in practice does occasionally do so. The vitamin does not occur in any of the food normally fed to the domestic rabbit with the exception of some hays, although the amount in these foods is usually low. Normally the vitamin is produced by the animal itself, but this can only occur when the animal is subjected to sunlight. Fish liver oil is a rich source of the vitamin, arid where deficiencies are likely to occur a small amount of this may be necessary.

Unlike the situation in some other animals, vitamin E deficiency does not affect the fertility of the rabbit. A deficiency does however produce muscular dystrophy. The feeding of excessive amounts of cod liver oil, by destroying the vitamin E content of the rations may thus produce this trouble. Vitamin E itself is present in fresh green foods, in cereal grains, and particularly in the cereal germ.