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What do you give your Rabbits for...

BattleKat said:
Does she eat normal hay? Sounds like could potentially have some dental problems going on if she's turning her nose up at everything, have you looked in to that?
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Yeah, she jumps on normal type hay and noms like mad, she has two boxes of it dotted around my living room and she eats most of the contents during the day, she also eats her cup of museli a day.
Sometimes she eats her salady bits - like leaves/seed bits. She'll eat maybe a half a handful of that every other day.

When we were at the vets last Thursday, she had her dental check and she had nothing wrong with them, the vets was rather impressesd at how well she was doing.
I just want to give her as a reward for being good, especially when at the vets, or when she gets into her cage for bed. But she won't go for anything! :?
 
Penelope's Mama said:
When we were at the vets last Thursday, she had her dental check and she had nothing wrong with them, the vets was rather impressesd at how well she was doing.
I just want to give her as a reward for being good, especially when at the vets, or when she gets into her cage for bed. But she won't go for anything! :?
Click to expand...
Strange!
Maybe just give her some extra bits of muesli, she obviously enjoys it :)
 
Penelope's Mama said:
Yeah, she jumps on normal type hay and noms like mad, she has two boxes of it dotted around my living room and she eats most of the contents during the day, she also eats her cup of museli a day.
Sometimes she eats her salady bits - like leaves/seed bits. She'll eat maybe a half a handful of that every other day.

When we were at the vets last Thursday, she had her dental check and she had nothing wrong with them, the vets was rather impressesd at how well she was doing.
I just want to give her as a reward for being good, especially when at the vets, or when she gets into her cage for bed. But she won't go for anything! :?
Click to expand...

Museli is basically junk food so she may not want other treats if she's filling up on that
 
Pea & Roo's favourites that they go mad for are fenugreek crunchies, carrotys and burns dried plantain. Others I give but not as regularly are excel nature snacks, dried dandelion, various dried herbs.

I like to try and keep the treats as natural as possible but on the very odd occasion I give a treat-ums. All of these you can find on the hay experts website except the treat-ums.
 
steph182 said:
Museli is basically junk food so she may not want other treats if she's filling up on that
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Why do you say that the museli is junk food?? The vet recommended I used it as Penelope will not eat pellets, and the odd times she has, she has had runny poops :shock:
The vet told me that she can't constantly have the hay as she'll get bored of eating that, and she needs to keep eating hay for her digestion and teeth. So museli is the only foodie option for her, which isn't really a treat as she only gets a cup a day! :?
 
bunnies wont get bored of hay. there are too many different types you can offer, in fact hay should be her main diet:)
my bunnies LOOOOOOVE mulberry branches, leaves and berries... and i use pellets as treats at night. they also love the occasional peanut.
 
Penelope's Mama said:
Why do you say that the museli is junk food?? The vet recommended I used it....
The vet told me that she can't constantly have the hay as she'll get bored of eating that, ... So museli is the only foodie option for her, which isn't really a treat as she only gets a cup a day! :?
Click to expand...
sounds like you need a better vet:oops: check out the diet section.
thats a lot of mueseli (sp) my 2 adult bunnies only get 1/2 a cup of pellets between them, and even that little bit is slowly being reduced.
 
Penelope's Mama said:
Why do you say that the museli is junk food?? The vet recommended I used it as Penelope will not eat pellets, and the odd times she has, she has had runny poops :shock:
The vet told me that she can't constantly have the hay as she'll get bored of eating that, and she needs to keep eating hay for her digestion and teeth. So museli is the only foodie option for her, which isn't really a treat as she only gets a cup a day! :?
Click to expand...

Museli isn't recommended for a healthy rabbit diet.
The only part in museli which is somewhat useful to a rabbits body is the pellets, the majority of rabbits won't bother eating these as they can choose to leave them. I don't *think* they have decent nutritional values either, but as I don't feed it I can't check that.

If she had runny poops on pellets, she probably either had too many or was changed over too quickly. She might also just not have agreed with that brand, I know a few bunnys get runny bums on excel (I use it, but my pair are fine). They should be changed onto a new food over a period of 10 days, each day taking a small propotion of the old food away and replacing it with the new food. Bunnys have sensitive tummys so the majority would get runny poos if changed over any quicker than that.

A rabbits diet should be 80-90% hay. She shouldn't get bored of eating hay if you get decent quality stuff, and even if she starts to show less enthuasium for one type, you can try others.
 
Wot steph said ;)

My rabbits eat lots of hay. They love their hay, if they see me reach for the hay bucket they get excited. You need a good quality hay so that they will be eating it throughout the day, grazing on it. Then they have an eggcupful each of pellets throughout the day, I handfeed them as treats. Then they get herbs and bunny safe weeds from the garden. Any treat over and beyond that is either homemade bunny cookies, bought from a lady on here bunny cookies, a tiny piece of banana or apple or a fenugreek crunchie. They only get these two or three times a week. They sometimes get an apple twig to gnaw on as well. They also occasionally have a handful of a 'treat' hay (treat cos I can't afford to just buy that!) either timothy or oat, wheat and barley.
 
Louie doesn't have commercial treats anymore, his treat is a bit of Narnnnnaaa :D

He goes mad for lemon balm and dandelions too :D
 
They've had wagg apple bakes and those parsley crunchy crackers off THE. They also had excel apple chunks/bites or something like that, but now i just tend to use pellets are treats. Id like to make my own but i need a nut gridner.

Occasionally they also have the most pathetic slice of fruit youve ever seen (usually banana, strawberry or apple)
 
My Vet told me that rabbits are healthiest when fed on pellets and hay, and the odd run around the garden so they can eat grass.

A side effect of eating muesli can be that rabbits become very fussy eaters because they get used to eating their 'favourite bits'.
 
RampantRabbits said:
They've had wagg apple bakes and those parsley crunchy crackers off THE. They also had excel apple chunks/bites or something like that, but now i just tend to use pellets are treats. Id like to make my own but i need a nut gridner.

Occasionally they also have the most pathetic slice of fruit youve ever seen (usually banana, strawberry or apple)
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I use a pestle and mortar to grind them for bunny cookies. :)
 
I make my own bunny biccies every now and again and when they were out in the garden, i had a pinch of museli rabbit food and scattered that about so they could go hunting. :D

As a treat, i get parsley in - they Looooooove it but it is quite expensive. Oh and a couple of leaves of spinach does the trick :love:
 
steph182 said:
Museli isn't recommended for a healthy rabbit diet.
The only part in museli which is somewhat useful to a rabbits body is the pellets, the majority of rabbits won't bother eating these as they can choose to leave them. I don't *think* they have decent nutritional values either, but as I don't feed it I can't check that.

If she had runny poops on pellets, she probably either had too many or was changed over too quickly. She might also just not have agreed with that brand, I know a few bunnys get runny bums on excel (I use it, but my pair are fine). They should be changed onto a new food over a period of 10 days, each day taking a small propotion of the old food away and replacing it with the new food. Bunnys have sensitive tummys so the majority would get runny poos if changed over any quicker than that.
A rabbits diet should be 80-90% hay. She shouldn't get bored of eating hay if you get decent quality stuff, and even if she starts to show less enthuasium for one type, you can try others.
Click to expand...


I tried to change her to pellets over a month, (from the food she came to us from the breeder with) gradually introducing them but she just didn't take to them at all. And would not eat any, no matter if I changed the brand (I tried three different types), even the brand I thought she liked as she ate a bit of it, but it caused her to have runny poo, (can't remember what it was, will have to dig it out, it wasn't excel though)
In the end I took her to the vets to check her teeth/tummy and they were both fine and she advised I tried museli instead as she obviously isn't a pellet friendly bunny!
Penelope now loves her museli, and will eat most of it daily.

As for the hay, Penelope is actually really fussy. I have four different types of hay :
Timothy hay
Meadow hay
Birch Herbage
Natural hay from the market

I give her Timothy hay regulary and interchange with the others. However some days, she is genuinely bored of hay. She won't eat any for a day and just avoids going near her hay boxes (she has three around my room) and just doesn't care for it.
When she first started to do it, obviously I got worried about it, and went to my vet for advice. She told me that some fussy bunnies can become bored of hay on some days - like us if we constanly had the same food. It doesn't mean anything is wrong with her, she's just being a very fussy madam!!
On these days, I try to get Penelope to eat her salad mix (leaves,seeds, etc mix) and she still eats her museli. The next day or sometimes the day after, she decides she likes hay again and noms it like mad!
Thats just the way she is.


Robyn - "sounds like you need a better vet check out the diet section.
thats a lot of mueseli (sp) my 2 adult bunnies only get 1/2 a cup of pellets between them, and even that little bit is slowly being reduced."

I trust my vet totally, she has a rabbit of her own similar to Penelope so I trust her word on what she says. She is a trained rabbit vet and does know what she is talking about. No offence, but I'd rather trust her word and advice as a trained professional then your opinion.
Also, how do you know the size of the cup I give Penelope?? It's actually a small glass, and is a perfect size. So please do not critise when you are unsure.

Thanks to those who advised me to try the crunchie thingys, have ordered some from THE, so hopefully she'll like those!!
 
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