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Forum DIET & CARE Not eating pellets!

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    • ReesePiecy
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        Ok so I am a little worried even though my boyfriend seems to think I am just being overprotective. Reese has never really eaten an hay from day 1. That use to worry me but she seems to do just fine without it. I have tried all different ways of getting her to eat it with no interest what so ever. She would always eat pellets then gets lots of treats mainly from my boyfriend who falls for her pathetic look every time. But recently she stopped eating her pellets also. She still eats anything else she can get into her mouth, in fact she is chewing on the box she sits on top of right now, just not pellets. Should I start giving her more greens and always have her pellets available just in case? I am not sure what to do. Don’t want to spend the money on the vet since she is still acting completely normal to find out I was over reacting. She is still playful and cuddly and wanting to eat everything she sees EXCEPT PELLETS! It might be driving me a little crazy. Any advice or experience with this?


      • Shannon
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          Did you recently switch pellet brands?  Or buy a new bag of pellets?

          We don’t use normal hay either.  If your bunny is into treats you may want to try a sweeter hay.  We feed orchard grass because i’m allergic to hay.


        • MoxieMeadows
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            What type of hay were you feeding her? My bun is a really picky hay eater. Right now I’m trying timothy and she seems to like it okay. But Shannon had a good suggestion.

            As for the pellets, like Shannon asked, did you recently switch brands or buy a new bag? I’ve heard of a few instances on here where buns will only eat “stale” pellets (pellets that have been opened for a while). I’d be a little concerned about switching her to just greens. Although greens are important, there still are nutrients that are in pellets that they need especially since she is not eating hay. I know some people will feed there buns greens and hay. I would definitely try and coax her to eat hay and leave pellets available all the time until she starts eating them again.


          • ReesePiecy
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              I was using store bought Timothy hay originally but then thought may she wanted it fresher so I went do a local store that sells bails but since I live in an apartment I couldn’t get a whole bail. I found out that they sell a mixture of everything that they sweep up when it falls off the bails and that gets changed out every week so I did that and she still wouldn’t eat it. I even tried making toys to put it in for her to pull it out of and what not with no interest still. I didn’t switch brands recently. This is actually the second or third bag of the same brand and the bags are pretty big but she ate through the last one completely. I also mixed some greens in with her pellets last night (trying to trick her) and she managed to pick through and find all the greens and still didn’t eat the pellets.


            • ReesePiecy
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                Ok so I had a chance to stop at the store today and got a bag of orchard grass and she had no interest! The lady at the pet store gave me the idea of blending things so I blended a small amount of greens with the hay and a smidgen of water. The greens got pretty fine and almost mushed all into the hay which was still a little bigger and she started eating it! I gave her a little to see if she would eat it all or just pick and choose still, we will see how it goes. Thinking of trying to blend in some pellets also.


              • Shannon
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                  Hey sorry,
                  I have been MIA a little. I am glad she is starting to eat the blend. some kind of grass/hay is important. Its an expensive trial and error process… Trust me we had a huge bag of hay and I had hives everywhere.

                  I still say if this is a relatively new bag of pellets. Picky buns are the worst..to feed


                • BB & Tiny
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                    Some stores sell flakes of hay which is part of a bale. Our rabbit rescue sells flakes also. Cheaper way to find out the type she likes. I’ve been lucky mine loved both the rescues hay and the bale I bought.


                  • ReesePiecy
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                      I guess I didn’t clarify looking back, the bag I have right now is 20 pounds and about half gone when she decided to stop eating them.

                      If I blend everything together well enough then she will eat right through it, if she is able to pick out the hay then she will. I also made another batch cause the first one was a small trial one and added in pellets and that seemed to work. I may see if any of the hay stores near us will allow me to bring her in and let her check them out and see if anything catches her attention. Sadly I live in a smaller town, Flagstaff Az, so do not have a lot of option for just flakes but I have been looking around more and more.


                    • Coco the Lionhead Bunny
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                        Maybe she is full from all of the treats that she gets. My Coco once didn’t eat any pellets because my mom was secretly giving him 3 treats a day. After I figured that out, I reduced his consumption of treats, increased his consumption of hay, and now he eats his pellets and nibbles his hay a little bit. Also, my bunny hates hay but he seems to kind of enjoy Oxbow’s oat hay mixed with Oxbow’s orchard. He never used to eat hay like this.


                      • ReesePiecy
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                          I did check the treat intake. I hadn’t been giving her many treats but usually I am not the treat giver anyways, my boyfriend is. He said he had not been giving her any extra and we decided to stop completely to try to get her to eat.

                          SHE HAS STARTED EATING PELLETS AGAIN!! She started again out of nowhere and my boyfriend witnessed her eating hay! He has the only one that has seen that, I have not though. But apparently she will only eat it out of the bag though, if I put some in her cage then she wont eat it, so I just put the whole bag in her cage! (She is not chewing on the bag at all I have kept an eye on it.)

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                      Forum DIET & CARE Not eating pellets!