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Help needed urgently please

Phoebesmummy9

Warren Veteran
I have a new 2 year old xlionhead Fletcher, who is now refusing to eat any form of dried food! weve tried giving him fresh food,giving him just pellets, changing the brand of food.. Nothing works! all he'll eat is apple and hay! should I be worried? :(
Hes still pooing,eating and drinking from the monitoring ive done so far but deffo non of his food has been eaten
As i say he is new to the household.. and has only been here just over a week, but did endure a long 45 minute journey in a car to get here, So maybe this is stress related? ATM im not corcerned his diet is just apple and hay as i know aslong as hes eating so his tummy dosent stop, but long term its gunna be bad for his teeth andim worried im gunna end up causing damage to his little teeth and ending up with nasty dioreha
Advice gratefully recieved
Louie xx
 
Hi :wave:

I was always under the impression that Hay is the best thing possible for their teeth so as long as he's eating plenty of that then I would of thought that was ok.

My new bun will only eat when I'm not around - unlike my others who nearly bite my hand off! :lol:

Do you leave it with him so he can munch at his leisure?
 
Yep - we walk away and let him get on with it! hes still very timid and shy and has just stopped flinching when you stroke him. Im just worried my poor bubba will end up poorly. Surley he cannot survive on hay alone :shock:
 
Has he had a vet check? It may be that he has some teeth problems that are making him not want to eat hard pellets.
 
He'll be fine on hay alone :) Its the main diet 80%+ of a rabbit. Wild rabbits mostly just eat grass.

Pellets are just handy because they provide a variety of vitamins rabbits would get by browsing other types of plant too.

What brands have you tried and how much hay does he eat?
 
Well as ive only had him a week nd a bit and hes had no know health problems before with his teeth i was assuming stress related :S
ive tried ss,tesco,excel he will just not eat any of it lol and he eats quite a bit of hay
 
If Fletcher is eating plenty of hay he will not come to harm, just make sure plenty is always available. Hay is much better for preventing problems with back teeth teeth than pellets. Ours have both meadow and timothy hay, but they do prefer the timothy.

Our four also love dried herbs/plantain/dandelion ( I buy from thehayexperts ). You could try him with these maybe, for more variety in his diet.

Vanessa xx
 
hay should be fine in the short term but he probably does need to eat some different things in the long run to help him grow and get more vitamins. When Rosie first came to me she would hardly eat anything but with time she got better. I would suggest:

Get a bunny vitamin suppliment and maybe some probiotic to put in his water

Try a very small amount (about a dessert spoon) of a crappy mix....don't ask me why but all my fussy bunnys seemed to like them and I could gradually ween them off on to junior pellets then normal pellets.

How about giving him a bit of grass/herbs which might be more tempting.
 
hes eating bits of his food now but not alot! can anyone recommend a good food? currently my buns are on a mix as they refused to eat pellets!
 
I've found SS is the best. Thing is - no healthy animal will starve itself. And be thankful your bun likes to eat hay - more people seem to have a problem with the buns eating only pellets. At least the hay will be good for digestion and teeth :D I would just give it time and as long as it is eating something then its better than nothing. Am sure after time your bun wont have a problem eating, but if you are worried id definately take it to the vet to get checked out, at least to put your mind at ease. Start off by putting a few pellets in with the bunny mix and gradually day by day start reducing the bunny mix and increasing the pellets. But like has been said - hay should be about 80 percent of the diet anyway so not many pellets are needed. Hope all goes well with your bunny :D
 
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