What food pellets do you use?

[Ash]

I’m sure there is this posted somewhere, but there where so many to go through. So sorry to repeat this if I did. 

What brand of pellets do you use? 

  Plus, do you measure the pellets? and do you feed them at a certain time of the day?  once a day or twice a day? 

We are using LM Animal Farm classic rabbit pellets.  But I’ve been hearing so many things for nutrients and stuff. The other rabbit group I’m in suggests Purina Rabbit Chow and a couple others. I also make sure that wherever I get my food isn’t supporting cruelty animal testing. 

Currently we free feed Mr.B and Roxy but started giving Mr.B not as much as usual. He’s actually slimmed down since we got him since the previous owners mainly feed him Romaine lettuce and baby carrots and gave him Yogies alot and food pellets like a treat and no hay! Now he has his bowl of food, unlimited timothy hay, 1/2 a yogie at night for going in is cage at night, and 1 stalk of Kale or 5-7 pieces of parsley; and a piece of grape or banana as a treat.

[Sarita]

I always measure pellets for my rabbits and my chubby rabbits don’t get pellets everyday.

I’m currently using Oxbow Timothy Pellets but I also like Zupreem pellets that I get on-line at Bunnybytes.com.

Actually pellets used as treats is a good idea. I do a 1/4 cup for my rabbits that get pellets. I do have one pair of dutches that I free feed but they aren’t chow hounds like most of my rabbits so I feel okay free feeding them.

I recommend using a timothy based pellet over an alfalfa based pellet – Purina is an alfalfa-based pellet. I’m not familiar with LM Animal Farm pellets however.

[wendyzski]

Alfalfa is great for growing or underweight buns but can be too rich for pampered house buns.

I’ve always used Oxbow Bunny Basics Timothy Complete, and my bun gets 1/4 per day, split over two feedings. She’s a 2 yr old lop mix around 6 lbs and she dances around the kitchen at pellet-time.

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

I think as long as your pellets are timothy based they are good; You want to make sure not to feed pellets with too much junk and NEVER feed yogurt drops (*gulp* I admit I have fed them though) they are no good for bunnies!

I free-feed my bunnies. I just fill it up when it’s empty or when they’ve dug the pellets all over the floor (buggers!)…Mine aren’t chubby, in fact my baby is a little skinny so I don’t measure or anything like that! They mostly eat hay and veggies and don’t get too excited for pellets…I do admit I mix ‘veggie puffs’ in their kibbles though …I am a pushover bunny spoiler

[BunnyLugs]

In England the vet recommends hay and veggies 1st. Or, Excel superpet pellets 2nd. They are expensive probiotic high fibre pellets. Must be good for that price!

[Gravehearted]

my three bunnies all weigh around 5 – 6 pounds and get 1/4 cup each of oxbow bunny basics Y (timothy) daily in the morning. I use the 1/4 cup measure as my pellet scoop, so it’s not extra fuss.

My bunnies get about a cup of greens every day, and of course unlimited timothy hay. for treats they often get an oxbow papaya tablet and a freeze dried banana chip.

[dmh426]

my 5 pound bunny gets 1/4 cup of pellets every other day. I really try to base most of her diet off of hay and veggies. She goes through a KayTee bag of hay every week or so. I buy the Kay Tee brand pellets that are Timothy hay based.

[Ash]

I took my littlest bun the the vet today and asked what she recommends and she says she really likes Oxbow food and hay. So once their food gets down we’re going to start slowly switching over to Oxbow so their systems don’t mess up.

[osprey]

I use the Oxbow Bunny Basics T also.  I have three bunnies, and they share 1/4 cup of pellets in the morning.  I free feed orchard grass hay, and they get a handful of oat hay every day too, usually in the evening.  They get greens twice a day, probably 3 cups at each feeding.

[(dig)x(me)x(now)]

I prefer to feed Frankie timothy pellets. Kaytee actually started making their own brand of timothy pellets, which is convenient since Oxbow can be hard to find!

I try to limit his pellets… I don’t physically measure it out, but he usually gets around 2 small palms-full of pellets per day to supplement unlimited hay and veggies 2x a day.

[RachelC-L]

I feed mine Sweet Meadow Timothy pellets. Sweet Meadow is right in Massachusetts, so we pick the pellets and hay up at their farm. They sell nice stuff.

My bunnies share 1/2 cup per day. Dorian is 3lbs. and Pauline is a little over 7lbs…teetering on too much weight (she was adopted this way in November), but she is probably fine. I am pretty sure she eats more of the pellets than Dorian, but for now, I think this is a good amount. They also get unlimited hay, of course, and veggies one time a day.

[elle.em.gee]

I’ve been feeding Zupreem/Nature’s Promise to my buns, and they go nuts for it. I open the bag and they run around in circles with their little noses in the air. According to the instructions, they should only be getting about 1/4 cup b/w the two of them, but I give them a little more since they are high energy and not chubby at all, and get plenty of hay & veggies. 

[Ash]

Zupreem that’s the other brand I saw in Petco that was low in protein and high in fiber(also ziplock bag) that I was thinking of getting.

[KatnipCrzy]

Does anyone know the calcium content of the Zupreem diet?  I emailed the company and while I got a response- I did not get an answer to that question.

I compared 3 brands that are readily available to me.  I want to feed a food that I can get more of quickly in case of a mishap (dogs get into the bin and eat it all, etc).  All 3 diets were similiar in price and I compared adult diets that were Timothy based even though I have a young rabbit- as I felt that was the best way to compare as that is the eventual long term food.

Kay-Tee- still uses a preservative called Ethoxyquin- this is a bit controversial and I am not sure there is solid evidence against it.  But I like that Zupreem and Oxbow do NOT use it.  I prefer the more natural preservatives.  Also KayTee seems to be in it for the "market share"- they are a big manufacturer of the awful treats and poor quality cheaper pet diets.  I wasn’t 100% sure they made the food for the rabbits benefit or to fill a market niche that House Rabbit owners are demanding.  They DO use Yucca in their food- which I read can reduce odor.  Again- really did not find 100% scientific data as a proven method- but I did like this addition to the food- as there is no discussed negatives that I could find. I did not email the company as I found all the data I needed.

Zupreem- it took 4 days to get a reply.  They basically sent a short email with attachements of the bunny nutrition data and run down that is on the website.  So I was unable to get a calcium content as requested in email.  They use corn as opposed to soy and wheat.  Thought there could be something to this- but as rabbit nutrition is far from an exact science- could not eval based just on that.  But what concerned me was the 2nd AND 3rd ingredients were both corn based- so I wondered what the corn to timothy ratio was.  They do not use Yucca.  Also they list ground vegetables in their ingredient list- and list "lettuce" as one of them- that is so vague to me- iceberg? romaine? what lettuce?   I feed Zupreem pellets to my parrots and am EXTREMELY satisfied and have no plans of switching.  I just was not as confident with their bunny food- which I think they have not been making as long.

Finally Oxbow- I was not satisfied with determining this was the best- based on past reputation.  I emailed the company and got an answer that addressed ALL of my quesitons.   They do not add Yucca but are currently evaluating.  The first ingredient- timothy meal- is just ground timothy.  they also answered a question about exp date on Papaya tablets.  And Oxbow is readily available in my area- thru pet stores and some vets.

Again- I know that rebbit nutrition is not an exact science- but this is some of the research and comparisions that I have made recently.  Does anyone have any further info?  I am not posting this to discourage or promote a certain brand- and I admit I gave up easily on researching the Zupreem.  Does anyone else over analzye every little detail like I do???

Julie

 

[KatnipCrzy]

I should also add that Iknow there are other diets out there that are recommended- like American Pet Diner and Sweet Meadow.  But no one around here carries them and shipping is high.  And I would be unable to replace quickly if I needed more ASAP.

Does anyone else’s dogs LOVE the rabbit food???  If I leave the side door open- they scarf it down if I am not around.  I have just been opening the top due to this.

[Scarlet_Rose]

Julie you are not alone, Alex has done quite a bit of research too.  You can check out his break-down on caloric content:
https://binkybunny.com/Default.aspx?tabid=54&forumid=1&view=topic&postid=25575

I use Oxbow Bunny Basics T, I have to drive a 1/2 hour to my local HRS to get them, but it goes to helping out the resident rescue rabbits so it is worth it to me and I can also pick up papaya tablets and other supplies.

[sweetbluebun]

I used to feed my bunnies LM animal farms classic pet rabbit food, it is an alfalfa based pellet. I never had any problems with my Netherland Cheeky, but it was waaaay too rich for my Holland Lop Guppy. Right now, I’m feeding Cheeky 1 handful a day of Zupreem’s timothy pellets and at first he wasn’t too interested now he’s all hoppy in the morning when it’s feeding time. Guppy is on a no pellet diet right now because of his cecal issue. Eventually when he’s ready to go back on pellets I will put him on the same regiment as Cheeky, 1 handful a day.

Of course they get unlimited timothy (which is a very fresh 2nd cutting I might add). They really love the stuff so much more than the brown/yellow hay I was getting in the bags. Luckily the feed store that I found had some fresh bales that were just shipped in.

My bunnies absolutely love the alfalfa pellets and knock over the unused bag whenever they can, I will usually give them 5-6 as treats but no more than that.

[Beka27]

i’d recommend, sweetbluebun, that you measure the pellets that they get each day. it’ll be more accurate than a handful, which can vary, and in case they get sick again, you’ll need to know exactly how much they are (or are not) eating. to do this, you can “reverse measure”… so let’s say they get 1/4 cup, at the end of the day you could pour back into the measuring cup to see how much they have left. you can use an inexpensive kitchen measuring cup for this purpose. i leave mine in the pellet container. also, i know i can tell my husband (if he needs to feed) to only give two even scoops.

[sweetbluebun]

Hmm sounds like a good idea, I had a scoop in there but it was plastic and Cheeky got into the bag one day and chewed the handle off (making it a little hard to use).

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