Sense of Smell

• Rabbits are herbivores, which means they are grazers. They eat grasses, clovers and other weeds, hay and young vegetables. They find their food by using their sense of smell, and that sense of smell works especially well in locating nearby home gardens.
  
  Rabbit grazing follows a distinct pattern: Beginning in the afternoon, rabbits quickly eat a large amount of food in about a half-hour, followed by another half-hour of more selective eating. During this time, the rabbit will defecate hard fecal pellets, which are waste material. The rabbit will continue to remain outdoors until sundown, grazing off and on, if no threat is perceived. At night, they return to their burrows. Rabbits do not hibernate or store food.
  
  

Double Digestion

• A few hours after grazing, rabbits will defecate soft pellets similar to the hard ones excreted during the grazing process. While the hard pellets contain waste materials, the soft pellets contain cellulose, which is necessary for the rabbit's health but hard to digest. Therefore, they are ingested again immediately after excreted. This process is similar to that of a cow chewing its cud. The cellulose materials are eaten, partially digested, excreted, ingested again and then fully digested. This process is most common when rabbits are in their burrow, resting between grazing periods.
  
  

Finding Food in the Winter

• During the winter months, food is not so readily available. Rabbits do not hibernate, however, and during the wintertime they will continue to eat any vegetation that is poking up above the snow, including the bark of young trees and shrubs when other plants cannot be found. They do this by using their sense of smell and will often leave their scent where they find food, so that they can use their scent to guide them back to that spot the next time. Oftentimes, their nose leads them to local trash or composting bins, especially during the winter months when gardens are buried under snow.