Low-Sugar Treats: Willow, Hibiscus and Pellets as Sweets

🥬 Feeding Notes · ✎ 4 min · by Azmi in Meknes

Azmi's note My personal log from Meknes, not vet advice. Just what I did and saw tonight.

I am Azmi from Meknes, and there is a young willow tree growing behind our building because a rabbit needed different treats. Smores has a large caecum, and our vet told us to skip the sugary extras, no banana, no berries, and stick to the personal list written for her. That conversation ended with a question I could not shake: if sweetness was off the menu, what would joy look like in her bowl. This is the origin story of our answer, from a bare patch of soil to a tree planted for bunnies.

The seed of the idea

It started at the vet’s desk, not in a garden shop. I had brought my notebook full of questions about Smores and her sensitive tummy, and I left with a short personal list and strict instructions to check back before changing anything. I want to be clear: I am not a vet, and nothing here is advice for anyone else’s rabbit. This is just our sheet for one rabbit, followed to the letter. On the walk home I kept thinking about dried willow leaves, which sat at the top of her list, and how strange it felt to buy leaves for an animal while a perfectly good patch of earth waited near our door.

The planting day

A neighbour who prunes his old willow gave me three straight whips, each about as tall as my arm, and told me to push them deep into damp soil and be patient. So on a cool morning I dug three holes, watered them well, and pressed the whips in while Smores watched from her carrier, nose working the air. I labelled nothing. I photographed everything. The first weeks were pure faith: brown sticks in mud, no sign of green, and me watering them every evening like a ritual. Then one whip showed a bud, then a leaf, then a spray of them, and I celebrated louder than the rabbits did, which takes some doing.

The first harvest trials

By late season the strongest whip had grown enough that I could gather a few fallen leaves, dry them on a clean tray in the shade, and offer a single one to Smores during a calm afternoon. She took it fast, crunched it fully, and looked up for more. A huge hit, I wrote in the log, underlining it twice. Next came the hibiscus plant on our windowsill, flowers opening one by one, offered only as her personal list allowed and always in tiny amounts. Then came the quiet reinvention I love most: her ordinary pellets and veggies, served with full ceremony in her special bowl, presented like sweets. She eats them with her ears up, entirely convinced she is getting away with something. Tummy first, sweetness redefined: that line in my notebook still makes me smile.

Those tasting afternoons reminded me of the slow photo sessions I keep in my dandelion afternoon photo log, where one leaf at a time taught me how Smores eats when she is truly comfortable. The same patience applied here. One new item, one quiet room, one honest note. Her tummy, our rules, and the rules were written by her vet, not by me. Landscaping by dietary requirement sounds funny when I say it out loud, but standing under that little tree with a rabbit on my mind, it feels like the most sensible gardening I have ever done.

What the tree changed

Treat time became garden time, with leaves gathered steps from our door.
Smores learned a new crunch she clearly enjoys, all inside her personal list.
I stopped mourning the banned fruits and started celebrating the allowed harvest.
The neighbourhood kids now know it as the bunny tree, which delights me.

The picky side of the household approves of this arrangement too, since a home-grown leaf station fits right in with the fussy setups I described in my picky hay station notes. Fresh supply, familiar routine, one happy rabbit at a time. Everything else on Smores’s menu stayed exactly as her vet wrote it, and everything new still goes through that same check first.

Today the willow is taller than me, throwing shade over the exact spot where I once dug holes with a spoon because I could not find the trowel. Smores gets her dried leaves from its branches, the hibiscus keeps blooming on the sill, and the pellets-as-sweets ceremony plays on. Through the hot weeks I water it deeply every evening and mulch the base with dry straw, and it answers with whips so long they brush my shoulders. If you are managing a similar menu, keep your portions tiny, your notes honest, and your own vet closer than any blog post, including mine. Our tree began with one rabbit’s needs and grew into the happiest corner of our home in Meknes, and every crunch under its shade still feels like the end of a story that worked out.

🐰

Written by Azmi

I track my rabbits' diet, weight and naps to see what works. Photos are mine, mess included. Say hi on the contact page.

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