Introducing pellet food

[MuffinMama]

Hi everyone. I just adopted a 9 week old holland lop last week. I could feel under his fur that he was EXTREMELY bony. The farm that i got him from had him on a diet of alfalfa hay and nothing else. I did quite a bit of research and concluded that he is underweight. I know he’s a baby, but his pelvic bones seemed overly sharp and prominent. I figured adding pellet food would be a good way to put on a bit of weight. Since he’s never had it before, I started small and gave him a very tiny handful (about 1 tablespoon) of pellet food yesterday and another tablespoon this morning. He LOVES it and eats it immediately, but I noticed today he has produced more cecotropes than I have ever noticed before. Is this ok, or should I not give him pellets yet? Or is there a better/safer way to introduce them? The pellets I fed are timothy based,as I read that it’s dangerous to have too much protein so I didn’t want to feed him more alfalfa in pellet form. He won’t touch timothy hay. When I mix it with his usual ha, he picks out the alfalfa and leaves the timothy.  

[sarahthegemini]

I would say one tablespoon is probably too much to start with. Start with literally a pinch of pellets and then gradually increase.

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