How to get a bunny from a bad diet to a good one.

[Wiserabbit]

Well Juno and Verity will be arriving with us next week. Their house is now taking over most of the lounge as we upsized having read the advice here.

Now I have a question about food!

I am concerned by what the current owners are feeding them - rabbit mix, carrots and from what I can tell, nothing else bar a minimal amount of hay. I know how bad this is, and that I need to move them to a hay based diet asap when they come and live with us. So, the questions are as follows:

1. Can anyone recommend a good pellet and hay? We use Charnwood's for the chinchilla as it was recommended by the breeder - what is their rabbit food like?
2. What timescale should we use for moving from the old diet to the new?

and on treats:

3. Lots of books say I should use small treats to help with training but then on the same page say how careful I should be in feeding treats. Can you recommend some good treats that can be given fairly liberally? Juno is so very very timid that I am going to need some good bribery.
4. I am planning to grow some rye grass and some clover in a shallow seed tray in batches that I can then use as their "Sunday dinner". We have no lawn, so I thought that would be a good way to give the bunnies fresh clean grass. Any problems with doing that?

Thank you in advance!

 

[HoppingBinky]

I'm trying to convert my rescue bun at the mo. All she had was musli and i small bit of hay aswell.I've brought some Burgess excel pellets as she seems to like these. It takes approx 10 days to switch over adding more pellets and less musli. Plenty of hay might encourage them to try it and timothy hay is quite tasty so you could try some of that. Treats i would go with Burns treats as they are made of natural ingredients or any treat aslong as it's natural. Any other help just pm me or add it to the thread. Hope this helps.

 

[neenee]

small amounts of fruit or carrot (carrot is very high in sugar content)
should be good as a treat
I feed my rabbit on science selective, she goes crazy for it and shes much healthier since being fed on it. Musli isnt good for rabbits as they pick out all the yummy bits they like , leaving the essential good bits out. Unlimited hay should be provided. Sorry have no advice ie the grass.

 

[Tamsin]

You can increase hay straight away but I would give a few days to settle before making any changes to the dry food. Then gradually swap between the two foods over about a 10 day period, adding a little less of the old and a little more of the new at each feed.

Regarding fresh foods, if they've only had carrots just introduce a little of new types gradually.

Keep a close eye on poop, you should see it increase in size as they eat more fibre but any sticky poops could be a sign of changing too quick.

It's very tempting to fix things that are wrong instantly but that can do more harm than good.

You'll need to monitor hay they eat and they might have bad habbits that need more work.