Chocolate

Toby said:

then I don't feel people have a right to say "Don't feed your rabbit this product it's bad for them" and frighten them. All I did was basically state "Look they are not that harmful if fed in moderation".

No one has told me yet why my rabbit has been on these for YEARS and his in tip top condition still - I am confused because based on what you lot are saying he should be dead by now.
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I am NOT being aggressive at all; I am just some what concerned.[/color]

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But the scientific facts and the examples given by Adele and others are that chocolate is bad even in moderation. At the risk of repeating ourselves like yourself, take Andis grandfather as an example. Just because he drank a bottle of whiskey every day and lived to be 80 does not mean that its OK to ignore all the safe drinking limits. My Mum is pushing 80 yet is a heavy smoker so based on that do we say, hey guys forget all the other info, smoking can't be bad for you because look at Jills Mum? I would say that my Mum, Andi Grandad and Toby are exceptions rather than the rule

Toby said:

Toby - this forum is not about scoring points off each other. There is no need to be so aggressive towards anyone who has a differing point of view.

I'm starting to seriously regret coming back here.

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I personally don't think its right for people to tell other people what is right or wrong for their own rabbit to eat. If someone came on here and said "My rabbit likes Chocolate drops" then I don't feel people have a right to say "Don't feed your rabbit this product it's bad for them" and frighten them. All I did was basically state "Look they are not that harmful if fed in moderation".

No one has told me yet why my rabbit has been on these for YEARS and his in tip top condition still - I am confused because based on what you lot are saying he should be dead by now.

I am kinda disgusted how people can say "Choc drops are harm" yet kids can eat loads of sweets :shock: its the same thing isn’t it.

I am NOT being aggressive at all; I am just some what concerned.

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Toby no one has said what you should/ should not feed your own personal rabbit.
Secondly as you have said you stated that treats fed in moderation are alright, that is your opinion, it is not the opinion of others from their own experiences.
Other Members have the right to state their views too, that is the point of an discusion forum.

I think everyone has put forward their ideas on the subject, and we have to agree to disagree.
Toby please try and stop taking the debate personally else we will have to lock the thread which will be a pity. :?
No one is telling you to stop feeding Toby treats if you so wish, but one example of a rabbit living to a grand old age does not reassure me that these foods are good for bunnies, sorry :?
I guess it is down to what we have all experienced individually, and we have to make our own judgments, minds up about our own rabbits as you rightly said.
Best wishes

I am not taking it personally I am just very confused, because its not that common for rabbits to be dropping dead over chocolate....or at least I don't think so.

I would say that my Mum, Andi Grandad and Toby are exceptions rather than the rule

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Toby is not in bad health. He goes to the vets every month for a proper check up due to his age to make sure everything is ok. I have been stated by the vet that Toby has the health of a young/middle aged rabbit. I am very pleased with that. These chocolate drops have not had any effect on him.

As for science - well apparently according to "Science" we are all going to drop dead with bird flu. :roll:

Toby said:

As for science - well apparently according to "Science" we are all going to drop dead with bird flu. :roll:

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I think the quoted figure of possible cases is 1 million and as the population of the UK is 58 million, its not that we are all going to drop dead with bird flu.

My rabbits love those treat sticks claude used to have one every week but now he doesnt have them at all,cause about a year ago he suffered 2 lots of bloat and at one time had some bladder sludge so his diet now remains completely as natural as i can get it and touch wood has been fine since
I think what is right for one bunny isnt going to be ok for another i wouldnt want to feed something to my rabbits that had proved to be harmfull reguardless of how much they liked it

Toby said:

Toby - this forum is not about scoring points off each other. There is no need to be so aggressive towards anyone who has a differing point of view.

I'm starting to seriously regret coming back here.

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I personally don't think its right for people to tell other people what is right or wrong for their own rabbit to eat. If someone came on here and said "My rabbit likes Chocolate drops" then I don't feel people have a right to say "Don't feed your rabbit this product it's bad for them" and frighten them. All I did was basically state "Look they are not that harmful if fed in moderation".

No one has told me yet why my rabbit has been on these for YEARS and his in tip top condition still - I am confused because based on what you lot are saying he should be dead by now.

I am kinda disgusted how people can say "Choc drops are harm" yet kids can eat loads of sweets :shock: its the same thing isn’t it.

I am NOT being aggressive at all; I am just some what concerned.

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Toby,

Just because children eat loads of sweets it doesn’t mean it is good for them.

Rabbit treat’s and children’s sweets etc are put on the market to make MONEY. That is the pure and simple reason.

A manufacture doesn’t care if Rabbit Chocolate drops contain dairy, which can cause Rabbit's to have Stasis, become Obese, teeth problems etc.

A manufacture that makes Jelly Bean's with god knows how many E numbers's in doesn’t care if it sends children hyper, gives them bad teeth etc. All the manufacture cares about is MONEY!

As long as people buy these products they will be on the market.

How many people die every year due to Smoking and Alcohol? These products are sold on the market even through they are damaging to our health. A best friend of mine recently lost a leg in a car crash as he was under the influence of alcohol. My Grandmother and mother’s father’s both died due to smoking.

We as a nation are getting more obese every year mainly due to the amount of processed/junk food on the market.

It’s up to us as pet owners to make informed choices based on facts. Fact's and information which need to be available to memebers of RU As Wabbit has mentioned several times it’s a proven scientific FACT that Dairy/Chocolate products are harmful to Rabbits.

I find hard to believe that you have told a member of RU that it is STILL OK to feed her Rabbit these treats after you have seen all the facts and people have tried to no avail to get you to see what’s wrong with feeding treats.

If you choose to feed your Rabbit’s treat that’s fine but let everyone else make his or her own decision.

Louise

We have a golden opportunity to feed our pets well without the interference of the media, or peer pressure. The bunnies aren't demanding these treats. They don't know they exist. It's entirely a human need to feed them these things. If we know they're bad for them then we're being irresponsible. I for one will stick to treating them with sprouts and blueberries.

A treat now and again may be ok, however I don't agree with feeding chocolate or anything that contains dairy produce. I stick with fruit, herbs and veggies, as a rare treat I would give my two a small amount of banana (is that ok?).

I was on tobys website and it says that his favourite treat is milky buttons. If I were you I would take that off the web because people reading that may think it is ok to feed them along other milky foods.



BTW I love that web site of tobys it is really nice.

I was on tobys website and it says that his favourite treat is milky buttons. If I were you I would take that off the web because people reading that may think it is ok to feed them along other milky foods.

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I understand what you are saying and to be honest i am thinking of taking the whole site down :lol: The way things are going I am get a bit of a bad name :wink: I might change it to "Rotastak Yoghurt Drops - for rabbits" as that is what he likes and i am not going to lie about it.

NO never take the site down I love it!!!!!!

All I was suggesting is taking off that tinsey winsey bit of it, because some people may feed mikly foods like those yoghurt drops on a regular basis:shock:

And don't think you aren't a good bunny mum because you are a great one, hence toby is the age he is. Although in my opinion i wouldn't feed those milky drops :wink:

Toby said:

As for science - well apparently according to "Science" we are all going to drop dead with bird flu. :roll:

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No.

According to some scientific findings there is a serious risk to the UK's population from "bird flu". According to the media, who know that nothing sells papers better than a scare story, and who are generally very short on well educated scientists, we're all going to die. One is fact, the other is spin and distortion. Criticising science because of how the media misreports it is ridiculous.

As for saying "the chocolate drops have not had any effect on (Toby)", you simply can't know that. He's clearly a very robust bunny, and you've clearly done a great job with him overall, but there are all sorts of things that you can't see in a rabbit and that the vet might not be able to pick up on. It is well established that chocolate (and the dairy produce in "rabbit" chocolate) is not compatible with rabbit digestive systems, and as has been said over and over again, a single exception to a general trend does not "disprove" that trend.

I also can't see where anyone has said that it's ok to stuff kids full of sweets. Did I miss a post somewhere? I'd have to disagree that "kids should have sweets in moderation"; the negative effects of sugar intake on children (and adults) are again well documented, and if I had kids they wouldn't be getting sweets where I had any control over it.

I used to occasionally (maybe once every 3-4 weeks) give our rabbits a small grape each, but I've noticed that that provokes quite a change in their behaviour (presumably the sugar rush). Boscov in particular would go quite hyper for a quarter of an hour or so. I'd think (and hope) that it's not caused any long term damage, but I'm not going to risk it again.

Yep, even those stick treats are full of sugar (they're very sticky to the touch also because they are bound together with a sugary substance.

I think all pet shop treats are bad for rabbit.
I also think all sweets are bad for children (in fact a lot of foods these days are mucked about with anyway & i don't agree with that either!)

BUT i think as we have seen on this forum, other forums & from our own experiences, rabbits are reknowned for their delicate constitution; guts & everything else!

I talk from experience & am well aware as a vet nurse (i must stop saying that :lol: ) that you do get the exception to the rule...this must not be taken as the hard & fast rules when more often then not experience tells us otherwise.

Being a vet nurse, (although i no longer work in practice) i spent years explaining health & nutrition to pet owners that had pets with diet-related illness, etc I only advise people, not tell them what to do & it is up the individual to make their own informed decision once they have been shown the relevant information/evidence to back up what hads been said.

To be honest the only stuff i would buy from a pet shop is a new toy or collar for my cat or dog!

The sale of pet treats is purely commercial & anyone in the pet trade will tell you; it is not the animals that they sell that they make the money out of, but the 'add-ons' (eg, any food equipment, etc).

I class their treats in the same category as their supposed healthcare products!

I would never begrudge an animal a treat, but if you do introduce choc/yoghurt drops, by just givinfg even one (as Adele says) you are starting off a taste pattern that will become difficult to undo if it is something of this mature. Manufacturers use something highly palatable to tempt , something that people/animals will especially like the taste of & this usually means adding a lot of fat, or sugar or artificial flavourings.

None of which are good in those levels.

I remember tasking a mallocluded rabbit to a vet, that was i was boarding & I informed the vet that the owners always insisted on him having a plain digestive biscuit every day (which the rabbit had grown to love). The vet couldn't believe it & said well what did the owner expect, then as this rabbit had such bad teeth. He agreed it was all nutrition-related & asked why on earth people fed such unhealthy things to their pets.

Being sarcastic he said "Why have grass when you can have digestive biscuits growing in fields for rabbits to eat!!"

AS the rabbit had to stay in at the vets because he was quite ill, the vet joked that i could leave the owners pot of digestive biscuits for him to have instead later with a nice cup of tea!!! :lol:

Anyway as the saying goes....'Start as you mean to go on' :wink:

PS. I also wouldn't doubt the ability for bird flu or other developing viruses that can mutate, to cause a serious epidemic.

The advice is given by experts who spend day in, day out studying this disease & other diseases. Again, it is there for us to take heed.

I think that's the whole point isn't it . I've read this thread again and far as I'm aware no-one was telling anyone, they were stating facts about what can and often does happen, which whether or not it happens to any individual rabbit doesn't make it any less true that it affects other maybe less robust buns.

If we all agree on that there's nothing more to be said 8) . I don't think anyone's arguing that Toby's reached a very good age and isn't suffering from his diet it's about the fact that it appeared - and I'm sure that wasn't how you meant it Emma - at one stage that you were saying that because Toby's old and healthy it proves that everything else said about treats is wrong.

I am as sick and tired of this as everyone else, going round in circles and repeating myself :roll:

Toby, one of the things you keep doing is comparing children eating sweets to rabbits having the occasional choc/yoghurt drop. At the risk of repeating myself yet again, you really cannot make this comparison. Rabbits have a very sensitive gut, designed only to consume huge amounts of grass, along with other plant foods. The human gut is able to cope with a lot more! So, even though sweets are not exactly good for children, given in moderation they are not going to pose a serious health threat.