Poll: pellets or no pellets!

[chul]

I personally feed pellets, but all buns are different

 

[missFloppyears]

See i have selected pellets, but we only give pellets as treats and rewards

 

[sparklefairy]

I've been told that I would be unwise to cut the pellets from the bunnies diet as one of my buns is a French lop and these bigger bunnies need the extra protein and nutrition. My other bun is a lionhead cross and she also eats pellets although chooses not to eat many and favours her hay, grasses, herbs and veggies. Storm, my frenchie, eats a large amount of everything so I'm guessing he has a good balance.
They eat science selective mature, ss regular and a small amount of burgess mature. I'm also introducing a small amount of those Fibafirst Monoforage pellets.

 

[Elena]

I have four different types of pellets on the go (though I don't really count the Bunny Nature as I hand feed them for treats.
It's kind of annoying as it's fiddly with three kinds, and the bags go down SO slowly with only one bun; some days I just want to chuck the P@H Junior 1/4 remaining bag in the bin to simplify things slightly.

They sent me four of the big boxes of Fibafirst, it's going to take forever to get through them!! :lol:

 

[Elena]

Depends on the individual situation as to whether or not pellets are in the buns best interest or not.

I'm not going to vote based upon that fact

:thumb:

Mine have pellets because (a) Mischa is prone to loosing weight (b) my lionheads need the protein and (c) they are indoor bunnies. I'm very fortunate in that mine are superb hay eaters (and as I say that I look over and Mischa has a pile of hay on his head) so I never have any worries about that side of things.

 

[Pebblesetc]

Yes, our vet says they aren't needed but that Buckley is in better condition on them than off them. But we use them mainly as treats, training aids, and a sneaky way to get baytril into the bunster

 

[Hoppit!]

For the first 3 years of his life my poor Ginger had constant tummy problems. He was always in pain and we had to wash his bottom every day. We kept going back to the vet but they were no use at all. Unfortunately he refused to eat hay under any circumstances so a hay only diet wasn't possible. We tried a million different types of mix and pellets but he couldn't tolerate any of them. I came across the hay and veg diet diet in a rabbit book, and gave it a try. The improvement was imense even though he still didn't eat much hay. He turned into a completely different bunny.

So yeah, I would say rather than suddenly cut out everything but hay for your bun, just leave out the pellets and take it from there. It's probably best to feed as natural a diet as possible, so look into the different wild plants you can give them. Cut out fruit altogether if you haven't done so already too.

 

[Boudicca]

Hoppit what veg were you feeding and what ones did you switch to as a result of the diet that helped?

 

[happysaz133]

Yes, mine eat Pets at Home pellets as well as tons of hay.

 

[little-laura]

they get a serving excel pellets everyday but main diet is hay with a few pieces of veggies, herbs or fruit

 

[Tuckerbunnies]

Most of our buns are just on unlimited hay and greens twice a day , but we have a few on SS pellets as well.

 

[SarahP]

SarahP I know you sadly had a lot of troubles with your two I was interested to read that despite the hay only diet no weight was lost?! I just can't seem to get Daisy to lose any and sometimes it feels like she's getting bigger!! I tried hunting for some of your older threads about the condition your 2 had (it feels so wrong to be snooping in someones old threads ) I was shocked to see the never ending struggles you went through :shock: There are so many little health threads are there any that explain what you eventually found the diagnosis to be and what the symptoms were? I can see it was one stasis episode after another, did they have cecal dysbiosis with it?

Aww thanks... I've got to say, it was a really stressful couple of years! :shock: I am convinced it was E Cuniculi that had remained undiagnosed for approximately 10 months (due to the fact that they didn't have any of the regular symptoms). Panacur helped their symptoms no end, but obviously permanent damage had been done (which may or may not have been to the gut - difficult to know. When Clover was PTS, I thought about having a PM done, but I decided that the results were highly unlikely to help Dusty. It may have been EC damage elsewhere in the body that caused pain, and therefore the gut problem, but my feeling was always that it was a problem with the gut itself). Oh and, as we know more now, Panacur doesn't 'cure' EC anyway.

I just wish I'd put them on a hay and dried herb diet earlier. Clover only had it for about a month before she was PTS, but she was really quite poorly by then. She never lost weight on it though. Dusty went on for about six months after, on the hay diet. She was weighed regularly at the vets, so I am absolutely certain that she didn't lose weight. I never had a problem with excess caecotrophs - only when I first got them, and when Dusty ate far too much of a particular hay. Their poos were always great, unless they were going into stasis or coming out of it.

I used to give a variety of 3 or 4 different hays, plus a little dried herbs daily.

 

[Boudicca]

You poor thing to have two bunnies both so poorly no wonder you are so hesitant to take on more It seems you never had much chance to experience the total joy of just experiencing happy healthy bunnies doing their bunny thing without the never-ending fear of waiting for the next 'episode'! It really is so stressful and agonising when they get sick, you just feel so helpless!

EC has a lot to answer for!! We need these drug company's to come up with something to kill it off and make our buns immune to it! It seems your furries had different symptoms to some of ours where the problem seems to eminate from the caecum! Daisy has beautiful large golden poos but it's the cecal matter that's the problem! I'm just so thankful it doesn't make her go in and out of stasis, but I'm worried that it will if left unchecked so I'm trying to gather as much info as possible to try and help sort it!

Thank you everyone for your comments they are all very useful! I hope I can get Daisy back on track and make to a normal healthy diet asap!