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Pets at Home - A step in the right direction?

Amy104

Warren Veteran
They are phasing out muslie feeds at the end of this month and once its gone will only be selling pellets as ''new research due to be published next month shows rabbits fed on a muesli diet are more likely to suffer health problems as a result of selective feeding.''
 
Its a good start. One day they will hopefully get a concience and stop selling animals to any Tom, **** or Harry! But stopping the sale of bunny junk food is a start for sure
 
I was going to put a post up about this,
Lets just hope too many people dont rush out now and quickly switch their rabbits on to pellets, or turn up one day and their usual feed is no longer in stock so they change onto pellet super fast,

It is a step in the right direction, but I have some buns that will refuse to eat pellet, and others that refuse to feed muesli, we have found a good mix of both now that we make at home that thy all love
 
For me it's the quantity of dried food that a lot of people feed, against hay etc, that is more of a problem (albeit that selective feeding is obviously not a good thing). I'm assuming Pets at Home pellets have a huge recommended daily amount to feed on the back, so loads of their product is used, as all dried food manufacturers do.
 
I think its positive they are at least trying to keep up with the latest research. The email does recommend that the food is changed gradually.

I know there are some bunnies that do better on muslie but most of us if asked would advise people to try nuggets in the first instance because of the issues surrounding selective feeding.
 
It's a step in the right direction at least.... should probably have had a note to say to switch over slowly.... and they're still selling the small hutches, but getting there!

I still haven't been in since the vip bunny saga! which is a pain, cos rupert and tia quite like their herbs and some of their hays, which normally i'd buy as treats, but no more lol
 
Thinking about it some more, what common rabbit health problems are directly caused by selective feeding anyway? :? I wonder what this research they speak of says. Dental disease isn't resolved by feeding pellets like for like in terms of quantity.
 
I think its a good thing. Lets face it, museli will always be sold in other shops if people still want to purchase it.
 
Sounds good.... But then my bunnies are on muesli and as long as I don't give them too big portions they don't selectively feed, they inhale the whole food bowl so fast :roll: and they eat ridiculous amounts of hay and have beautiful golden poos, so I don't think muesli directly harms bunnies, it's just how people use the muesli (giving too much, or giving it I appropriately if the bunny is a selective feeder). I think maybe raising awareness on rabbit health, diet and ownership skills would be better than taking away some options. But then again at least it stops the people who don't pay attention to advice and awareness schemes being able to give muesli wrongly, but then they'll probably just over feed their bunnies pellets....

Not that it matters to me, I get my bunnies' muesli from my local farm :D and they've been told as long as they don't selectively feed they can keep having it!
 
Not everyone has email, we 'used to' feed p@h pellet, but too many of the buns were not interested (they only get 1 hard food meal a day) and even by the following evening had half eaten only half, and although they have unlimited hay, it didnt sit right, but I never got an email...
 
Mine are on rabbit royale, which they don't sell in pets at home anyway so it won't affect me, however I'm sure it will affect lots of people.
 
It's a step in the right direction at least.... should probably have had a note to say to switch over slowly.... and they're still selling the small hutches, but getting there!

I still haven't been in since the vip bunny saga! which is a pain, cos rupert and tia quite like their herbs and some of their hays, which normally i'd buy as treats, but no more lol

They have recommended that food is switched over gradually over a 2 week period

http://www.petsathome.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Info_10601_rabbit-muesli_-1_10551

And also: "Around 80% of a rabbit’s diet should be made up of good quality hay with small amounts of fresh leafy vegetables. "
 
Excellent step forward :D I am hoping now that Tesco will see this and follow suit and take that manky rabbit value mix off its shelves!!
 
I think it's a step in the right direction. :D Hopefully the info Helen linked to will be available in store too, so it's not reliant on people receiving an email.

I think that muesli mix is mostly cereal based, so higher in protein/lower in fibre than pellets (which are usually grass/hay based) so, even selective feeding aside, pellets are generally (but not always) more suitable. The problem with selective feeding is that it's not giving the right mix of nutrients, so it'd be interesting to see what sort of effects that actually has.
 
The problem with selective feeding is that it's not giving the right mix of nutrients, so it'd be interesting to see what sort of effects that actually has.

Yes, that's what I'm interested to see. I'm no rabbit expert, but I've not heard of any common conditions that are due to vitamin and mineral deficiencies so far. :?
 
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