I usually buy plain pellets for my rabbit and I recently got a different brand of pellets that has little vegetable bits and pieces in it. My rabbit always ate his pellets fine but now, I seem to find he scatters the pellets which I assume he\'s looking for the vegetable pieces and it\'s really making a mess in his hutch. He never \"littered\" his cage like this before. Is he trying to tell me something? If I go back to plain pellets, will he reject them? Or should I stick with the pellet/veggie mix? There really aren\'t alot of veggie bits in it, but it seems like he\'s fishing those pieces out so I\'m concerned he\'s not eating his pellets like he should. Help!
The same thing happened to me not so long ago. I picked up the same brand as usual, but this time it had little pieces in it that were even shaped in little hearts, etc. It is so wasteful when they scatter it and the pellets fall through and aren\'t eaten.
I used to salvage what I could and just leave the remaining pellets for him to eat which he eventually did. My thought is that when they are hungry enough, they will eat the plain pellets. I was careful this last time to NOT buy a new box with any pieces so he wouldn\'t waste so much.
I would rather have him have the plain pellets again because he NEVER made a mess with them. I guess he\'s a little spoiled now and only wants his veggies bits.
I just ended up putting the pellets back in his dish so he knows he\'s not going to have ME clean that up and that he\'s expected to eat what he\'s given. I figure, like you said, if he\'s hunrgy enough he\'ll eat them eventually.
I always recommend straight pellets with any supplements sprinkled on top. Rabbits do tend to dig through their food searching for the preferred morsels, which results in a lot of wasted feed. Any additions that are sprinkled on top of the pellets are eaten first, then followed by the pellets.
I\'d make the switch. Usually a more gradual switch is preferred. Mix the feed half and half, then over the next 3 days gradually increase the percentage of the new food until that is all the rabbit is eating.
Charlcie Gill
Zodiac Rabbitry
Astoria, OR
http://www.zodiacsatins.com