Worst Pellets Ever

[Korr_and_Sophie]

I went to a petstore today and decided to check out pellets. I found one that had 8% fiber :shock2:. That shocked me. Pellets should have 10% more than that and oxbow has 29%. It was labeled as Premium, but also have seeds and coloured bits in it. I think that is the worst bunny food I have ever seen. Some of the other pellets were OK but there is so much disparity in the same brand name. Some are decent and some just suck. This stuff also cost as much or more than I pay for a fairly good pellet :huh. People just make me sad sometimes :nosir:.

 

[HoneyPot]

yeah it's too bad petstores aren't the least bit concerned in only selling things that are good for your pet.

 

[naturestee]

Ew. Have you ever looked at the treats? Some of those seed sticks are bigger than Mocha's body, and they recommend giving them several a week! :shock:

Some of the cat and dog foods are just as bad once you know what to look for on the label.

 

[Korr_and_Sophie]

Most people don't do the research about what their pet should eat. Companies use marketing to get people to buy crap. putting Premium on the label gets more sales but is worse for the animals. Epically when a lot of marketing is targeted toward children, so bright colors and fun bits are what kids want. There are also brands that try to be good but are just as bad as the other ones. There is on that is timothy based but has corn in it as the 3 and 4 ingredients.

 

[ra7751]

Hi,

This goes back to Bunny Basics 101. Why worry over the amount of fiber in the pellets? They should be such a small part of a rabbit's diet....if any part....that it really shouldn't matter. A rabbit was designed by Mother Nature to live off low protein, high fiber food like grass...and hay is nothing more than dried grass. The wild rabbits live off bark from trees in the winter when food is scarce. Hayin unlimited amounts should be the bulk of a rabbit's diet....just as intended, low protein and high fiber. My biggest rabbit, now nearing 30 pounds, gets less than 1/8 cup pellets per day. Many of our large warren get no pellets at all. They all have unlimited hay and water along with limited greens. We use pellets only to maintain weight in sickor senior residents. Offer your rabbit unlimited hay, limited greens and very restricted pellets/treats. That makes for a healthy rabbit.

And my thinking...and I have had rabbits for many years...is that pellets are much more for our convenience than any benefit to the animals.

Randy

 

[Sealy]

ra7751 wrote:

Hi,

This goes back to Bunny Basics 101. Why worry over the amount of fiber in the pellets? They should be such a small part of a rabbit's diet....if any part....that it really shouldn't matter. A rabbit was designed by Mother Nature to live off low protein, high fiber food like grass...and hay is nothing more than dried grass. The wild rabbits live off bark from trees in the winter when food is scarce. Hayin unlimited amounts should be the bulk of a rabbit's diet....just as intended, low protein and high fiber. My biggest rabbit, now nearing 30 pounds, gets less than 1/8 cup pellets per day. Many of our large warren get no pellets at all. They all have unlimited hay and water along with limited greens. We use pellets only to maintain weight in sickor senior residents. Offer your rabbit unlimited hay, limited greens and very restricted pellets/treats. That makes for a healthy rabbit.

And my thinking...and I have had rabbits for many years...is that pellets are much more for our convenience than any benefit to the animals.

Randy

Randy, how does one go about weaning buns to a lower amount of pellets fed without compromising their tummies and etc?

 

[ra7751]

Well...my rule with rabbits is that nothing good happens fast. Everything should be done in small stages. To give an example....we have Fifi. She was pretty much forgotten in an outside hutch. Her humans were disappointed because she was such a small French Lop. They couldn't feed her enough to get her size to whereshe should have been. Well, Fifi ain't no French Lop...she is a mini and was about 4 pounds overweight. We knew we had to get her weight down and knew of the damage to the liver if we just pulled her unlimited show formula pellets. We started by reducing her food by 5%. We then progressed in small increments and it took nearly a year to get her weight down. The moral of the story here is just to change feeding habits gradually and over a period of time. Just start reducing the pellets by a small amount every week or so and keep the hay available all the time. Keep reducing the pellets until they are ata managable level..and hopefully a very small amount of pellets. Many of my rabbits get no pellets at all and they are quite healthy.

Randy