Pellet Free Diet?

[AbbyGirl]

I’ve been doing some searching for more accuriate amounts of veggies and pellets to feed Abby.   It seems like her weight goes up and down a lot and I’m always needing to change her pellet intake to make sure she’s not gaining or loosing too much weight.  So I found this article on the Chicago House Rabbit Society written by an exotic animal vet.  She pretty much states that pellets are not needed for a healthy house rabbit diet unless there are specific reasons they are needed.  They say to feed unlimited hay and 1 cup of greens per 2 lbs of body weight.

Here is the link.  http://www.hrschicago.org/articleslay2.html

What are your thoughts or opinions on this?  Does anyone else feed their rabbits a pellet free diet?

[Sarita]

The majority of my rabbits do not get pellets. The ones I do give them too, they don’t eat much of them at all.

However, I would discuss this with your vet especially since she seems to gain and lose weight quite a bit.

[AbbyGirl]

I will definitely be consulting her vet about his as well. I just want her to be happy and healthy! =)

[Sam and Lady's Human]

Ooh I just posted about this a couple weeks ago, there’s a whole “support group” on Bunspace about it too. I’ve started implement it with Samson, I’ve cut her pellets in half for now and she is eating more hay now, which is good. I’m going to keep it at half for a month or so and watch her weight. She was mad the first couple days but now she’s back to normal

[Monkeybun]

One thing to remember is that if you cut out pellets, she will need more veggies, more variety of veggies, to maintain the vitamin and mineral levels she needs.

[jerseygirl]

I’m a fan of pellet-free diets (as are the vets I see) but I’ve been too weak to withdraw them!

[TriBun]

I’ve researched this myself and it seems pellets are only needed if they aren’t getting their nutritional needs met by veggies. There are days my bunnies don’t get pellets at all, but if there’s a week that I can’t get the veggie variety they need I’ll supplement with pellets. I think of them as kind of a multi-vitamin, to be used if their diet is lacking.

Pellets are really just the pet food industry’s way of getting your money. Many uneducated owners use them exclusively, but we know better

[Sarita]

This article is very good and explains a about rabbit nutrition and the gi physiology:

http://www.hrschicago.org/gitractfr.html

[Stickerbunny]

I give my buns big salads daily, but the variety of veggies available at our local store is sometimes quite poor (certain things are only available seasonally) so I don’t think I could do pelletless here… they wouldn’t get enough variety year round and we don’t have a chain grocery store to buy from. But if you do enough research on what they need daily and match it, I can see why some people would support that just like with all animals, it’s closer to their natural diet.

[AbbyGirl]

Thanks for that link Sarita. That was written by the same vet as the one I posted. I refer to her articles quite a bit.
Abby gets 4-5 different veggies everyday already. I also noticed a HUGE difference in her energy level and spunkiness when I switched her brand of pellets. She also now gets alfalfa in her timothy hay because I couldn’t find any local that wasn’t a mix this year. Which is why I was considering pellet free. So I recognized a few things the article states in Abby.

[MoxieSox]

I feed a small amount of pellets daily and LOTS of veggies and hay. My bunny seems much healthier than when he was with my parents for a year and pretty much lived on pellets and hay.

[Author]

Messages