Amaranth is a collection fo annual or short-lived perennial plants. They are also known as Amaranthus and some species of amaranth are cultivated as cereals, ornamental plants, and leaf vegetables. Most species are summer weeds are are often referred to as pigweed. There are around 60 species of amaranth that are recognised.
The leaves or greens that come from amaranth are a common leaf vegetable eaten throughout the tropics in many different warm and more temperate weather countries.
So can rabbits eat amaranth and if they can, how much of it can be eaten?
Taking a look at its nutritional data will give us a better idea of what it contains.
In particular, its starch, sugar, calcium, phosophorus an fat content is of particular interest as far as rabbits are concerned.
Amaranth, uncooked
Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)
Energy 1,554 kJ (371 kcal)
Carbohydrates 65.25 g
– Starch 57.27 g
– Sugars 1.69 g
– Dietary fiber 6.7 g
Fat 7.02 g
– saturated 1.459 g
– monounsaturated 1.685 g
– polyunsaturated 2.778 g
Protein 13.56 g
– Tryptophan 0.181 g
– Threonine 0.558 g
– Isoleucine 0.582 g
– Leucine 0.879 g
– Lysine 0.747 g
– Methionine 0.226 g
– Cystine 0.191 g
– Phenylalanine 0.542 g
– Tyrosine 0.329 g
– Valine 0.679 g
– Arginine 1.060 g
– Histidine 0.389 g
– Alanine 0.799 g
– Aspartic acid 1.261 g
– Glutamic acid 2.259 g
– Glycine 1.636 g
– Proline 0.698 g
– Serine 1.148 g
Thiamine (vit. B1) 0.116 mg (10%)
Riboflavin (vit. B2) 0.2 mg (17%)
Niacin (vit. B3) 0.923 mg (6%)
Pantothenic acid (B5) 1.457 mg (29%)
Vitamin B6 0.591 mg (45%)
Folate (vit. B9) 82 μg (21%)
Vitamin C 4.2 mg (5%)
Vitamin E 1.19 mg (8%)
Calcium 159 mg (16%)
Iron 7.61 mg (59%)
Magnesium 248 mg (70%)
Manganese 3.333 mg (159%)
Phosphorus 557 mg (80%)
Potassium 508 mg (11%)
Sodium 4 mg (0%)
Zinc 2.87 mg (30%)
Source Wikipedia
As you can see Amaranth contains quite a lot of starch, calcium and a huge amount of phosphorus. It is also interesting to note that it is high in proteins and acidic content.
This means that it is pretty bad for bunnies to eat because of this.
So do steer clear of feeding it to them.
If they happen to have small amounts of it, they wil be fine. But do not feed it to them on an ongoing basis. There are far better foods for them to enjoy