Best Mixed food???

Hello.

As some of you may know, one of my rabbits is VERY fussy. She's been on a mix food all her life, but after actually reading the nutrition (it has low fibre), and the fact she doesnt eat hay, i wanted to swap her onto a pellet. However, iv tried over the years with no success. Iv tried excel, many times, excel junior, bunny basics, and science selective. She wont touch it! She doesnt touch the pellets in her normal food either!

So iv decided instead of a pellet, ill try get her onto at least a better mixed food, that is if she'll eat it! I was just wondering what is the best mix food out there? I cant find nutrional information on many of the mixes, and those that i have seem to be low fibre.

Im bonding her and my two mini lops so ideally they need to be on the same food. My two minis are easy however, they swapped easily onto their excel junior and dwarf food, and i give them the odd pellet of the others, as a kinda treat, so i can use them up! And they love it. So they should be easy to swap over onto, and they also eat plenty of hay so hopefully they shouldnt have too much of a problem.

I really dont know what to do, iv tried cutting down the amount of food so that shes hungry enough to try eat the pellets, but it doesnt work, and i dont want to leave her too long without food as she doesnt eat hay and im worried about her guts shutting down! Shes a pain :roll:, but i still love her! Thanks for your help guys.

In that case have a look in Verselaga Brand in a pet shop they have several rabbit foods rich in fiber, low fat especially studied for rabbits : Cuni Complete for example are extruded pellets - not hard like other pellets and I suspect your bunny does not like pellets because they are too hard. My vet is against hard pellets which are not that good for teeth just because Rabbits are not rodents and do not like stone-like sort of foods.

Here is their link : and the thing you can try 500g to see if she likes it before buying large quantities. They also have mixed but especially for Rabbits with lots of fiber and natural herbs and extruded nutriments.

http://www.versele-laga.com/Nutri/N...ndex.jsp?fam=224&ani=5335&ran=12347&pro=12348

Have you had her teeth looked at at all? If she's not eating hay then her teeth might be slightly overgrown and might make it hard for her to eat pellets.
That's what happened with my rabbit. There was only one specific (and expensive!) type of pellet he would eat (which are the beaphar care+ pellets in case you want to give them a try).
Since he has had his teeth sorted out he will eat most types of pellet - all the ones he wouldn't touch before.

I'm not sure about what the best mixes are really... The link above looks useful though.

Good luck sorting something out!

Loosy- She does have dental problems- just her back teeth, which need filling every 7 months like clockwork. She had them done about 2 months ago and as shes at the vets a lot recently i always get them checked. So i doubt it is her teeth, and also as iv tried several times over the years (although fter trying for a few weeks i normally give up trying for a while!). Im quite lucky that her teeth only need doing every 7 months, as she doesnt eat any hay at all, so little wear. I have used his same brand of food since, well, my parents used it before i was born! And we've never had any problems, but our buns usually ate hay along with it so it wasnt too much of an issue.

My vets actually told me pellets were best for dental buns as it makes their teeth work harder. The pellets in her mix seem quite hard, but excel seems very soft in comparision, just crumbles. She did at one point eat some excel pellets, but then she stopped.

Thanks for the link Martine, iv never heard of that brand before, or seen it. Theres so many brands of food out there, its hard to know whats good and whats not! I guess ill keep looking!

It's quite used in France, and they are crousty as well not hard stones ! :lol:

But I think if your bunny had dental problems she could not eat seeds contained in the mixed because they are very hard.

Chloé has dental problems and her molars needs trimming every 2 or 3 months as well, but she eats lots of hay it's a pity yours does not eat hay and I know that when a rabbit refuses one kind of food there is nothing we can do to have him eat it, and contrarily to dogs, we cannot starve them to eat because the digestive track must not stop working. Sometimes mixing the new to the old helps but not always. I kept a poorly rabbit for 5 years only very skinny, and she was never hungry it was desperate to have her eat anything and even treats. She only fancied one kind of pellet from Canada !!! very convenient to get !