Hard time switching over to new food

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thegooch69

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, New York, USA
I'm having a hard time switching my rabbit to Oxbow Bunny Basics 15/23. I use to feed him Fiesta brand, but I read how bad that was for him so I'm trying to switch. When I gave him just Fiesta he'd eat the whole bowl, now he just knocks it over and picks through it, and doesn't eat the majority of it.

I measure about every 2-3 tablespoons of Fiesta I do 1 tablespoon of the Oxbow. I fill up the bowl this way and mix it. Maybe I should reduce the Oxbow some more? Or should I just give up with the Oxbow and try another brand of food?
 
It is really hard to switch rabbits away from junk food like Fiesta. Your best bet is to sift out all the treats and feed only the pellets for a few days, then start mixing the plain Fiesta pellets with the Oxbow ones. It might take a while still, but that should help. If you need to, reduce the amount of pellets overall (making sure there is enough hay) so that he has to eat Oxbow if he gets hungry.

Best of luck! I had a hard time too. Yes, I was the same as you in the beginning and Princess Mocha was not happy about losing all those yummy treats!
 
How long have you been trying to switch? I'd really hate for you to have to switch, Oxbow is a great food. I feed Oxbow Bunny Basics/T, I never really looked to see what the difference between that and what 15/23 is. Does the Fiesta your trying to wean him off have those treats in it? If it does, are you picking those out?

I'd stick with it, especially if you've just started and see if he comes along with the new food a bit better. If not, then try something else.;)

Good Luck with the transition, let us know how is goes!


Edit: Haha, Angela, we posted at the same time:D.
 
It's been about 3 weeks since I started switching over. It's hard to pick out just the treats in Fiesta because it's has so much treats, seeds, and little other things in it. But I'll do my best and see what happends.

Let me see if I understand you right. I should just feed her Oxbow and hay for a few days and see if that forces her to eat it?
 
No, start by feeding just the pellets from Fiesta, then start mixing Oxbow with it. If that doesn't work after a while, feed a smaller amount of pellets but still mix the two brands. That should force her to eat the Oxbow with the Fiesta because she's hungry.

I know exactly how hard it is to separate the treats and the pellets in Fiesta. There's almost more treats than the pellets! I found that it was actually easier to pick the pellets out and put them in a separate bag than to pick the treats out.
 
I had to switch my rabbits from junk to healthy stuff recently and some took to it and some didn't.

I started really slow, like with a small pinch and every few days put in a tiny bit less of one and a tiny bit more of the other.

The reluctant ones realised that protesting was futile and I WAS going to win, so after a few days of strops near the end, we got there. I made sure that they had a consatnt supply of hay so that if they didn't want the pellets they had something else to eat.

It took me a month. And two of the buns refused to eat any of the pellets for the first few days they didn't have the junk with it.

Just keep persevering and you'll get there!
 
I'm going to try it that way. Just reduce the amount of the new stuff I put in for awhile and slowly increase it. I think I was adding too much of it at once to early. Plus it's nearly impossible to pick out just the pellets in Fiesta. It'll take days.
 
thegooch69 wrote:
Plus it's nearly impossible to pick out just the pellets in Fiesta. It'll take days.
Click to expand...
Do you have astrainer you can use to separate the pellets? Like you would use to drain noodles? Thatwould work;). It'd be a heck of alot faster and easier.
 
Well I've been mixing the Fiesta stuff with the Oxbow for about a month now. Today I took out the Fiesta completly, and started doing straight Oxbow. As I expected, he hasn't touched it. At least I don't think he has.

So I'm just going to keep the bowl in there and hopefuly it'll force him to eat it eventually. I'll be sure to have a lot of hay available to him and give him a small bowl of lettuce and carrots a day, as I always do.

<sigh> **** Fiesta and their sugary treats!
 
He'll get used to it, especially when he realizes this is it and is all he's getting. It will take some time. Just make sure he has tons of hay and regular veggies to supplement.

That's what so bad about that stuff, they get used to the sweets and love it even though it's bad for them:(.

Good Luck!
 
i know exactly how this is!!! I made the drastic mistake of using fiesta when I first got her and now I can't get her off of it. Slowly everyday I'm adding less fiesta and more of katyee premium timothy pellets (i think that's what they are called) but i keep noticing that layla will NOT eat the pellets, everyday I find her bowl cleared of the treats and stuff, but just a small pile of plain pellets...but i don't give her anymore food, i figure if she's hungry she'll eat it :Dhopefully this will start to work sometime, cuz i feel like i'm starving her!
 
Oh man I can only imagine how hard it is to switch from a food like that! It's taken me a year to manage to get one of my bucks to eat Oxbow and I was only switching from a plain Alfalfa pellet to Timothy ones. Eventually you know what did it? Bonding him to another rabbit. He saw the other rabbit eating it and he decided it wasn't going to kill him.

So I feel your pain! Good luck switching over, others have given you great and hopefully helpful suggestions.
 
I actually noticed him eating the Oxbow last night! Thank god. I feel so much better now knowing he's eating healthy food instead of sugar.
 
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