House Rabbit Society Lies
The 80% Hay recomended Diet with 15% fresh greens and 5% pellet was created by Susan brown, I interviewed Corinne Fayo who stated “I had a discussion with her( Susan Brown ) about her diet recommendations….nonsense…and then I traced back the reference they would use to “prove” the hay diet…it was in a rabbit nutrition book and in one chapter the author discussed the “House Rabbit Society” diet and credited it to Jeff Jenkins and Susan brown…so those two and HRS use that book which is hard to get, to say their diet is legit. “
This is a Another example of self accreditation trying to pretend it was cited from reputable source.
HRS has questionable Sources on the House Rabbit society care pages House Rabbit Society cites three sources for their information at the bottom of their care page, they cite zero studies, and zero research, you are expected to take what they post as gospel with no reviewable sources to back it up. it is there for not academic but a op-ed opinion piece. :
Dr. Susan Smith, Ph.D., Professor of Nutritional Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Dr. Micah Kohles, DVM, MPA, Oxbow Animal Health
Dr. Peter G. Fisher, DVM, Dipl ABVP (Exotic Companion Mammal), Pet Care Veterinary Hospital
Dr. Susan Smith, Ph.D., Professor of Nutritional Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison ( 2002-2010 National Board of Directors, House Rabbit Society (Richmond CA)
Dr Susan Smith has a lot of "invited guest speaker" positions, mostly to HRS conventions, and several Lay-person opinion articles on her resume. She has Zero studies involving rabbits in her published body of research, Zero rabbit related peer reviewed papers, and Zero Rabbit related study sponsorships. In fact all her rabbit related activities are solely on the House Rabbit society board , where they seem to be using her doctorate to give House Rabbit Society Opinions more clout but not to back up these opinions with any solid science.
The other 2 listed as references are paid by Oxbow.
The Factual History of the House Rabbit Society As HRS grew in the late 90s, the House Rabbit Society began targeting veterinarians still in college. They would offer assistance or positions as the staff vet for their rescues. This caused 2 whole decades of newly graduated rabbit vets to be beholden to House Rabbit Society for their assistance getting their careers started. In this way, House Rabbit Society was able to spread their misinformation and point at the vets on their payroll as the "experts" *even though those veterinarians are steeped in animal rights propaganda and House Rabbit Society misinformation.
HRS has not presented meta-analysis to back up claims or often no research is available. Lots of studies HRS bases their articles and propaganda on were retracted for Abusive or poor methodology,( the sample size being too small to base conclusions on . Due to this no abstracts or papers HRS links to are available because they were removed from academia.
80% of what rescue and House Rabbit Society recommends is WRONG and has no basis in science, its continues to be followed due to stubbornness and does NOT have the rabbits best interests in mind . Even NOW they are quietly holding back true info even though they KNOW too much salad kills.
In 2020 To avoid losing their charity status through political activity (animal rights activism) they filter through their "education" budget... and conveniently, during their audit, everybody got covid On charity navigator, they aren't even listed because they are under tax audit. Most of the HRS state branches have a failing charity navigator rating.
If you go further down the 990, there's the itemization On the Georgia HRS chapter 990 filing...where it asks to describe where the money was spent...it just says "rescuing and rehoming rabbits' ' no itemization, no breakdowns... just zeros in every column and 1 paragraph stating what they do...so you basically have to take their word on it All of their pamphlets and activist junk is produced under "educational" materials.... and there's proof^^^ HRS got into merk veterinary manual... wonder who greased that pharma companies palms? And, it states quite plainly in the tax filings, they leave "educational materials" at vet offices
We have learned HRS hates rabbits and wants them to die
House rabbit society says Netherland dwarf breeders are pugging the skull of rabbits... but that isn't true... they are simply smaller and thus the shape... there's no facial push in like a pug
searched pub med, went through all 170 results , only found 1 opinion paper from 2003 stating rabbits should be fed grass hay or extruded pellets ..99.999% of pellet rabbit feed sold commercially today is extruded.
HRS in early 2024 split into 2 groups. now the original 4 chapters, and the bulk of the chapters were taken over by even more drastic AR activists younger generation.