Can Rabbits Eat Cherries? Yes, Here’s the Answer

Rabbits live for all things sweet, so much so, if given unrestricted access to a plaque of sweet freshies; be it vegetables, fruits, seeds. They’d bite and nibble themselves sick on these foods.

Can rabbits eat cherries? Yes, Rabbits can eat cherries. They can eat the sweet fruit only if they are fed in petite quantities and under close supervision.

It’s important you know that cherries can be detrimental as much as it makes wonderful delicacy for your bunny.

Cherries have hard pits that can damage your Rabbit’s dentition when eaten and can cause severe digestive problems when swallowed. They are fairly healthy diets for your rabbit because they are rich in antioxidants and contain a number of calories, nutrients that can be destructive when consumed in excess.

This article will not only answer your question, It’d also give you deep insights into understanding the risks and benefits of feeding cherries to Rabbits.

Nutritional Value of Cherries

Cherries are small stonelike fruits but mighty in nutrients. They come in a variety of colours and are divided into two categories – Tart and sweet cherries.

Tarts, otherwise known as Prunus cerasus L are literally Cherries with sour tastes.

While sweet cherries also known as Prunus avium L are “sweet” as the name implies.

A study has shown that Cherries, especially the fresh pitted ones are highly nutritious with an 18% daily value of Vitamin C and contain a lot of Calories (97%) that have been proven to be of great health benefits. Both varieties of cherry contain;

  • protein (2grams)
  • Carbohydrate (25grams)
  • Fibre (3grams)
  • 10% of the daily value of Potassium
  • 5% of the daily value of Copper and Manganese, respectively.

As earlier stated, cherries are rich in antioxidants that boost muscle recovery and ease muscle pain caused by extreme exercising, they also contain high anti-inflammatory compounds like polyphenol.

Polyphenol combats a variety of chronic disease conditions which includes; heart diseases, diabetes and certain cancerous ailments.

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Benefits of Cherries for Rabbits

Without the cherry pits, Cherries absolutely great for your rabbits, they are highly
nutritious for your bunny.

They are great for rabbits in the sense that the vitamins, sugar (energy), sodium,
phosphorus, fat and fibre are of great health benefits to your rabbit.
You may be wondering why the cherry pits were excluded from the diet? Do not
worry you’ll know why in due time.

For now, feed cherry in small quantities to your rabbits as you may not want to
risk the consequences of feeding them too much of it.

Risks of Cherries to Rabbits

Like the popular saying, too much of a good thing can be wonderful, but too much of anything is bad.

While cherries are of high nutritional benefits to humans, they are of fairly nutritional values to rabbits as they are acidic coupling the nutritious benefits.

Acidic in the sense that cherry pits contain a meagre amount of cyanides which are quite poisonous for Rabbits.

Cherry pits are really hard likes stones. You can find them inside the cherry fruits. These pits not only put the health of your bunny in harm’s way, their hardness can also do serious damage to their dentition.

In an array of brief sentences, cherries;

  • Can hurt your bunny’s dentition.
  • Can cause serious digestive problems if the pits are consumed by your
  • bunnies.
  • Can be poisonous when consumed in high quantities, thus decrease the
  • lifespan of your rabbit.

In regards to cherries and rabbit health, fresh cherries are better fed to Adult rabbits. We strongly disapprove of feeding dry cherries to your bunny. Dry cherries are extremely sugary for your rabbits.

More so, if you must feed cherries to your bunnies, it should be at least once or twice a week and the quantities should be at the barest minimum.

How to Feed Cherries to Rabbits

There are quite a number of things to take into consideration when you want to feed cherries to your bunnies.

You need to know these considerable factors before you get familiar with how you can feed cherries to your rabbit.

The factors are as follow;

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Type of Rabbit

There are apparently different types of rabbits which include the Himalayan rabbit, Lionhead, Mini lop, Dutch, and so on and so forth.

Just like the human body systems react differently to food, it is the same for different rabbit breeds to react differently to sweet delicacies, especially if it’s their first time.

You need to know the kind of rabbit you have before introducing them to sweet treats like cherries.

Many rabbits tend to react badly to new diets, reactions could come in form of sporadic dark stool (colour can change over time), stomach upset, anorexia, loss of appetite and a couple of other anomalies you will be acquainted with when the going turns bad.

Small rabbit breeds like Netherland dwarf have frail digestive tracts even at their adult stage which can be a problem if they eat cherries.

Age

The age of your bunny matters. Baby rabbits (under 3 months of age) and Juvenile rabbits (3 to 6 months of age) have immature digestive systems and can’t handle the high sugar in cherries.

That’s why it is advisable to not feed them cherries at all and if you must feed them, you have to wait until they are old enough to handle the sweet forbidden fruit.

Dentition

Adult rabbits (6 to 12 months) should have a fully formulated set of teeth that can enable the biting and chewing of cherries.

Abnormal development like overgrown teeth can hinder them from grinding the mushy flesh of cherries which can, in turn, cause a digestive problem if not ground properly, hence their dentition should be considered.

Now you are acquainted with the above factors, here’s how to feed cherries to rabbits.

Start by removing the pits and stalks from the cherries before given at least, half a cherry to your rabbit.

If you are heavy on hygiene, you can hand feed the cherries to them so that you are sure of what’s going into their body.

Chop the cherries in small bits before feeding them to your rabbits to help with easy chewing and digestion.

Related Questions

Below are answers to other related questions we feel you might be interested in;

Can Rabbits Eat Cherries Stems?

A very big NO is the answer to that question. Cherry stems are very toxic and poisonous to rabbits; they contain volatile oils and high potassium salts that are quite unsafe for rabbits.

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In fact, the stems of any stone fruit are not safe for rabbits consumption. If you hold your bunnies health interest at heart you will keep them far away from cherry stems.

Can Rabbits Eat Cherries Leaves?

Once again you are getting another NO. Just like the cherries stems, the leaves are not safe for rabbits consumption.

Both stems and leaves contain cyanide – a rapidly acting, potentially deadly chemical that consists of carbon-nitrogen.

Humans die from cyanide poisoning talk more of your furry friend.

Can Rabbits Eat Maraschino Cherries?

NO, they can not. Today’s maraschino cherries undergo series of transformation processes that involve bleaching to get a light-reddish colour. These processes lead to a massive loss of micronutrients.

More so, Maraschino cherries are highly sugary and thus not a healthy treat for your bunnies. If your bunnies eat a maraschino cherry by mistake, the consequences are not so severe if it’s just 1 of it
that has been consumed, if things get serious kindly take your rabbit to any veterinary clinic nearest to you.

Can Baby Rabbits Eat Cherries?

No. The digestive system of baby rabbits cant process cherries. Feeding cherries to Baby rabbits can cause them to experience severe stomach upset, bloating/diarrhoea, sporadic stooling.

Keep cherries far away from your baby bunnies.

Can Rabbits Eat Dried cherries?

Dried Cherries are extremely high in sugar and phosphorous contents, they are acidic and totally NOT SAFE for your rabbits. So the answer is NO.

In conclusion

We understand you love your furry pal and would do anything to make them happy, sweet fruits like cherries are nice treats for them. But too much of it can be dangerous. So you must endeavour to feed them cherries in really small quantities.