The European rabbit is an herbivore with a diet consisting almost entirely of greens such as grasses, young trees, and buds. Additionally, rabbits can also subsist on farmland crops, such as cereals, lettuce, cabbage, and of course, rooted vegetables such as carrots. They do not generally eat fruits, as they are either too hard for the rabbit to reach or too acidic for their digestive system. Interestingly enough, rabbits also consume their own soft feces as part of their digestive process, which will be explained in the next section.

Finally, rabbits are discontinous feeders. They take breaks to eat and are not constantly consuming food.

A graph showing the decline of the wild European Rabbit population in the UK. Image from The Rabbit House.

www.therabbithouse.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/uk_xrabb_95_17.gif

Rabbits are hind-gut fermenters with a very peculiar digestion process. After rabbits consume their food and it has passed through the stomach and the small intestine for the primary stages of digestion, it then passes into the large intestine, which is divided into two chambers; the caecum (a chamber full of bacteria that ferments food) and the rectum. The caecum is what makes the rabbit's digestive process so unique and classifies them as hind-gut fermenters. Food first passes into the caecum which ferments the food and turns it into a soft paste. This paste is then made into pellets by muscular contractions that force it through openings in the wall of the caecum (called haustra) and into the colon. These soft pellets then pass through the anus and are consumed whole by the rabbit. These pellets are then digested again and are not sent through the caecum, this time passing straight through the colon and exiting the anus as hard pellets.