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My baby rabbit will not eat pellets

22 10:39:47

Question
Hi. I have a question about my bunny. About two weeks ago I noticed that my baby rabbit (unsure about age but definitely before puberty) would annoyingly scoop out his food so that it was everywhere. The food consists of pellets & other things such as grains & peas. I just noticed that he doesn't eat the pellets, & only eats the peas & grains. He also eats lots of alfalfa hay. I was told that it was important for baby rabbits to eat pellets. Is this serious?
Thanks a bunch
Laura

Answer
Hi Laura,

this is a diet issue.  Specifically you are feeding your rabbit the wrong pellets.  You need to give your rabbit only food pellets, without any extra junk in them.  Rabbits are like people; they eat what they like the most, first.  They may ignore what they like the least.  This is what he's doing with the pellet mix.  

I recommend Oxbow brand pellets, I've never met a rabbit that didn't like them.  You need to switch him over to the new pellets gradually over two weeks, gradually increasing the amount of the new pellets and less of the old mix until the only pellets he's getting are the new pellets.

It is not important for rabbits to eat pellets if they are eating a lot of hay.  They need hay much more than they need pellets.  At one year old, you will want to switch him over to timothy hay, as he will be full grown and should not be fed alfalfa (too much calcium for adult rabbits) and he could get bladder sludge and/or kidney stones.  You will want to well before this point give him timothy hay to get him used to it.

I would suggest also picking up the books I mention in my profile info, and also spending some time at the House Rabbit Society web site (www.rabbit.org) and doing an article search on "nutrition" and "diet".  You'll find a lot of excellent info there.

Write back anytime.  Lee