Is this too rich to feed buns

[Bunny Mum]

Some of our buns seem to have excess poops and some are soft not round pellets is this rabbit feed too rich.

Ingredients on bag are as follows Lucerne Chaff, cereal chaff, oats, rice, barley, lupins, peas, beans, canola, sunflower,bran, pollard, vegetable oil, molasses, electolytes, organic chronium, vitamins and minerals.

We have five buns and used to give them 4 cups of this in morning with unlimited haywe now only give 2 cups and they hate us for it but we are hoping this will encourage them to eat more hay.

 

[MyBabyBunnies]

Well I don't have much time to say all that I want to but the problem could be that Lucerne is the equivalent of our Alfalfa hay. So that itself could be the problem.

I'll let others expand on the rest.

 

[naturestee]

Yup, lucerne= alfalfa. Timothy pellets are usually better for adult rabbits, either that or the 15% protein maintanence pellets you can sometimes find.

The other problem in the ingrediants is a bunch of high protein/high carb ingredients: oats, rice, canola, barley, peas, beans, sunflower. A few of those might not be too bad, but that's an awful lot of stuff! By contrast, here is the ingredient list for a typical 16% protein alfalfa feed in the US:
Forage products (alfalfa), wheat midds, roughage products (oat or rice hulls), plant protein products, grain products, molasses products, calcium carbonate, salt, dicalcium phosphate, choline, chloride, DL-methionine, ferrous oxide, magnesium oxide, niacin supplement, vitamin E supplement, calcium pantothenate, riboflavin supplement, vitamin B-12 supplement, vitamin A supplement, vitamin D-3 supplement, zinc sulfate, zinc oxide, manganous oxide, calcium iodate, ferrous carbonate, copper sulfate, cobalt carbonate, sodium selenite.

Translation: alfalfa, fiber, fiber, added protein, grain, molasses, added nutrients. Your pellets: Alfalfa, fiber, protein, protein, protein, protein, protein... (and carbs for all these also!)

Search around and see what else you can find in your area that isn't so protein and carb packed.