I think his original pellets from the muesli mix were closer in taste to Excel, certainly the texture and smell (to me) was similar, but I expect he'll switch plenty quick enough ;P He might come round to basil if he sees the others eat it: when he started eating mint, so did my two!
Also, yeah, that whole excited thing is normal for here as well XD Lopsy's JUST like that, or was in his younger years XD You can see why he might have had a few, uhm, accidents! At least Willoughby never fell off anything! Speaking of which, we forgot to give you his tube of sticks (like this
https://www.petsathome.com/shop/en/pets/wooden-playsticks-large) which he used to use to eat bramble from high up
It's his only original thing from his first house I would even keep with him [emoji38] it's a bit awkward to get out of the dog crate though which is how it got forgotten!