I have two related questions, and I thought someone might be able to tell me the answer...
1. If a bunny is used to a food but hasn't had it in, say, 6 months or a year, do they need to slowly get used to it again before they can have it?
2. If a bunny is used to the dried version of a plant, are they okay with the fresh plant as well, or do you still need to start with only a small amount of the fresh plant?
Oh what interesting questions
Is question 1 relating to plant-type food or pellet food? I don't know what the correct answers are and don't think I've ever read about these issues anywhere.
I have to admit that with the advice about making sure they slowly get used to a new food, I have always considered this to be the case with pellets. But I think to restrict it is clearly wrong. The reason why I'm now thinking that, is because the difference between one pellet and another is small, but the difference between different plants can be massive. However, whilst I have just come to that conclusion, I don't think I will change how I have always played this.
Obviously seasonal plants, which I use for forage will be available at different times of the year. Take Cow Parsley for example. We get fresh growth of Cow Parsley around March time. I have never limited the amount I have fed even though their previous meals of Cow Parsley will have been late Autumn the previous year. This is the case for all plants that I regularly feed as forage. However, if I found a brand new plant in the garden, which I knew they had never had before, I would feed a very small amount to start with to make sure they didn't have any bad reactions.
I rarely feed dried plants here, but if I did I would consider the dried and fresh versions to be the same in respect of this issue. So I would not feed just a small amount of either to start with.
All of this made me think of another related issue, which is about new Spring grass. The advice is to feed this sparingly as it is rich and would possibly cause a digestive upset. I have always followed this advice, but thinking about it I wonder why grass is different. Grass is a plant like any other. So why is there not considered to be an issue with fresh new Spring growth of any plant?
I will be interested in the comments of others
So after all that rambling
my answers to your questions are (1) No and (2) Yes they would be OK.