Question about a VERY picky bunny and Pellets

[pennythebun]

First off, I will start by saying that I have a VERY picky rabbit. Her name is Penny, I’m not quite sure how old she is because I got her from a pet store, but she can’t be older than 4 months old. My younger sister also has a rabbit who is around the same age. They are not a bonded pair because they fight when together.

I started Penny off on Oxbow basic essentials young rabbit food. She ate that for maybe 2 weeks then stopped eating it. I didn’t really know what to do because she’s still young and I figured she needs the nutrition. My youngest sister has guinea pigs, which Penny somehow gets along with. She likes their food I figured it couldn’t hurt to try it. Today I bought her some actual rabbit food that was different. I just got her kaytee Timothy hay complete. I started thinking maybe she just hates the taste of alfalfa pellets. I’m just curious is it going to affect her growth or nutrition in anyway if she doesn’t have the alfalfa in her diet because I know young rabbits are supposed to have alfalfa pellets until they are 6 months or so because it has more calcium. I know kaytee is not a top notch brand either I just picked it up to see if that’s why she wasn’t eating pellets. She ate a whole bowl of pellets within a 2 hour period when I gave her those pellets.

Just wanting some thoughts?

[Bam]

Young rabbits don’t need alfalfa per se, but they do need more calcium and protein than adult buns. You can give her more of the Kaytee timothy pellets to compensate, just as long as she doesn’t get fat. Here’s a comparison between different brands and types of pellets: http://www.therabbithouse.com/diet/rabbit-food-comparison.asp
The main difference between guinea pig food and rabbit food is that guinea pig food contains vitamin C. Piggies can’t synthesize vitamin C (just like human’s can’t), but rabbits can. Vitamin C isn’t harmful for rabbits, but it’s absolutely essential for piggies. (Meaning a bun can live well on piggie food but a piggie can’t live on rabbit food.)

There are also greens that are high in calcium, if you’ve started her on greens yet. Carrot tops, parsley and kale are among those. It’s a bit tricky to know how much to feed though, because too much calcium also causes trouble.

[pennythebun]

She eats greens like crazy! She’s just very picky and has her favorites. She does eat a lot of hay so I’m not really worried about that. It just worried me when she stopped eating her pellets completely. But thank you so much!

[Author]

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