Chester, new to timothy hay

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javierfajardo121

javierfajardo121

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6 month old black, netherland dwarf. feeding 1/4 cup bonanza pellets (the kind that has a bunch of stuff in it) twice a day. He seems to not be eating the timothy hay, im not sure if its just what ive read everywhere that he's eating the good unhealthy stuff first and getting full on that. Or if he might be sick. hopefully its not the latter. This morning i chose to stuff two handfulls of t-hay in his cage and not give the pellets. 2pm came around and it seemed to me that he had not touched the hay. i just checked and most of it is gone. Should i just take the opportunity that he's off the bonanza food and get him the timothy based pellets. or should i still do the weening off the old food into the new?

Any suggestions and critiques are very appreciated.

-Javier
 
from what it sounds bonanza pellets seem like not a very good choice. (if its fancy looking with all sorts of different stuff in it, pellets should look plain, greenish and unappetising lol)

it's always better to transition from old pellets to new but our boys seem to selectively eat if we mix two together so we only ever did it for a couple days and then started 100% on the new pellets
 
If your rabbit isn't on a good pellet i would switch him to a good pellet. asap. But you need to do this slowly. I think it took me 3 weeks to switch my bunny. A timothy pellet would be best.

I'm not sure what you mean by "new to timothy hay" but...... Your rabbits should have unlimited hay all the time. It not only helps the gut but it helps break the teeth down.


 
chester was an impulse buy, read stuff for like 5 minutes and i swore i was an expert (typical right?). As i started to play with him and get to know him i want to give him the best i can. So ive been spending my free time reading care guides, and now the library on here. so i didnt have hay for him before, i was only giving him pellets. i know its pretty crappy of me, but i now know better and i am trying to fix what ive done wrong.
 
Ok...I see. But your fixing it so thats all that matters and your gonna learn alot from reading :)I would go ahead and start giving him unlimited hay right away.

They also sell Orchard Grass and Botancial Hay. Try mixing those with the timothy hay. I buy both for my bunnies and give them along with the Timothy Hay....just not as much as a treat ;)
 
If he won't eat the timothy hay, try other types of hay. My rabbit will not touch timothy hay at all. Then I tried giving him orchard grass, which he likes, and now he LOVES oat hay.

As for pellets, I had my bunny on the unhealthy stuff too for a while. When I took him to the vet, she told me just to stop the alfalfa pellets altogether and switch him to timothy based pellets, not to bother doing it gradually. But my bunny is VERY picky and when I mixed the two, he would just pick out the alfalfa pellets and ignore the timothy completely, so it didn't really matter if I added timothy in gradually since he wouldn't eat them anyway. He did not eat pellets for a few days (during which I posted on here a bunch of times completely worried that he was going to starve to death), but he finally gave in and now he loves the timothy pellets.

Anyway, switching food might not be easy, but as I know you realize, you feel so much better knowing that they are eating healthy! Good luck!
 
javierfajardo121 wrote:
@masysmummy yea they arent, we didnt know this till i started reading up on the best diet for him. that was 5-6 days ago. its alfalfa based and has all the fancy stuff. gunna get this one ten pound bag of good stuff i found at petco, heres the link. http://www.petco.com/product/14643/Kaytee-Timothy-Complete-Rabbit-Food.aspx?CoreCat=LN_Shopping_SmallAnimalSupplies_Rabbits_Food reading the nutritional facts it seems to be pretty good. yes?
Click to expand...
from what i've read around the forums kaytee complete is one of the best american brand rabbit foods available so you're doing the right thing there :)

good on you for doing your research, this website has a fantastic library and i'd also suggest checking out www.rabbit.org (the house rabbit society) because they have good listings of rabbit savvy vets and lots of other information too :)
 
Hello! You and I are in the same boat. I recently got a Holland lop who (by suggestion of this forum) I believe is 12-14 weeks old. I've been feeding her the same thing but am planning to switch to something more simple. To those who are curious this is what the bonanza looks like:

1-1.jpg


2-1.jpg


3-1.jpg


So... on a scale from 1 to 10 (10 being the worst)... how bad is it for us to be feeding this to our bunnies?



 
switch out asap...

to low in protein, too high in fat (is that 6% i see? eeeek!)

i'm desperately hunting around to find the reccomended nutrient content for rabbit pellets...

give me five minutes to find it

if someone else has it on hand can they please post it to help out?

<3
 
BAH this is frustrating the hell out of me... ic ant seem to find it.

of the top of my head between 14-16% protein
fat should be between 1.5 and 3% (max)
fibre should be 20-25%

i think.


there is heaps more re: vitamins and minerals etc but i can't remember off the top of my head.

there is a great chart you should print out and it gives you the RDI for rabbit pellets... just take it with you to the shops :)

 
Ravishing if you have a petco around you, they carry the stuff i linked in my previous post. other than going up a bit higher in price (oxbow) its pretty good ive read and been told =]
 
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