How long can he go without eating pellets

[Luvmyzoocrew]

Benny the foster i have at the moment has recently changed pellets, when his owner gave him to me yesterday she said she was just changing him over to his adult pellets so she got me a bag of Zupreem, i think, he was eating something called JR Bunny that was banana flavored :yuck. There wasnt enough for me to do a switch there is just a drop left so i opened the new bag of food and put just a few pellets in there of the old stuff and he has eaten the old stuff but dosent seem to be touching the new stuff. At the present he is not getting veggies, cause i gave him romaine this morning and he had bad soft poop, so my plan was this

Give him the new pellets and have him settled and pooping normal for about a week before changing anything else on him.

After one week of solid poop then i would start to put the veggies in slowly, and wdatching the poo.

So my question is how long if he only gets hay, water and pellets should i let him go if i think that he is not eating his pellets?

 

[Amy27]

I am sorry if I am just not reading your post correctly but is he eating the hay and drinking? I am alittle anxious and don't have experience with this but if mine where eating hay and drinking I would probably go 2-3 days. Now if he isn't eating hay I would be more concerned.

 

[JimD]

Amy27 wrote:

I am sorry if I am just not reading your post correctly but is he eating the hay and drinking? I am alittle anxious and don't have experience with this but if mine where eating hay and drinking I would probably go 2-3 days. Now if he isn't eating hay I would be more concerned.

:yeahthat:

Benji went for almost a week on just water and lots of hay.
He absolutely refused to eat the new pellets (Zupreem), so I ended up going back to the original ones (KT Timothy Complete). He wouldn't eat ANY of the pellets if they were mixed.

IMO....give him what he was getting and liked (old stuff).
My Chippy was never switched over from alfalfa to timothy pellets and is doing just fine for several years now.

 

[Luvmyzoocrew]

yes he is eating, or at least nibbling on hay and drinking. Ugh Jim the stuff that he was on smelled so gross,lol!!! Ok i will have to run to the store today and get some of the pellets he was eating and then think ab out switching him later .

 

[Luvmyzoocrew]

OMG this is too funny i decided to let his original mom get the food that she wanted to put him on instead of putting him on Oxbow, not everyone can afford it so i figured that if his new owners wanted to switch him they could, so his original owner got the Zupreem. This morning i saw him go to his bowl with the pellets smell and do nothing, so i was getting ready to fill Chargers and decided let me try him with some oxbow because my guys all love it. I put a bowl in with it and dont you know he went right over and started chomping on it!!!!!!!!!!!!! ON MY GOD ANOTHER ONE EATING OXBOW,LOL

 

[Flashy]

If it were me would keep presevering with the switching over, but maybe so it slower. Sandy didn't eat her new pellets for about a week when I was switching her from junk to pellets, and I just kept decreasing her junk and increasing the pellets, but I think I allowed the transition to take longer so that she had more time to get used to it. Having said that, that's based on my rabbits, and you have to go with your gut instinct as to what is better for him. What do you think would be best?

It was a battle of the wills with Sandy but in the end she was so hungry she ate it and did fine with it.

I would not mess his diet too much and not give him anything else new until he is completely settled on the pellets (whatever brand) and has been stable on them for a while with no upset tummy.

 

[Luvmyzoocrew]

i agree with not giving him anything else till he gets settled too, he is eating the Oxbow,lol, great a rabbit with expensive taste,lol. So i will let him keep eating them until he gets use to it and settled with everything then start slowly introducing things to him. I was just worried about him only eating hay and water.

 

[JimD]

:clapping: