Since I have to go an extra 20 miles to a feed store I wonder if I can just suddenly cut off pellets. They have been getting vegetable trimming and pellets so they are used to eating vegetables. They are not too fond of horse hay. Of course they love the high priced hay.
Cold turkey off pellets?
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I try to never do anything "suddenly", with rabbit feed...
The typical advice is to transition them slowly from one food to another, but there have been times we'd done a drastic change in feed and haven't seen any ill effects yet. However, we've never really been a one feed kind of rabbitry. They start out with a varied diet and that seems to allow them more dietary leeway in changes. A friend bought some rabbits from someone who never ever fed them anything other than pellets and hay, those rabbits didn't thrive on a varied diet and wouldn't eat unless offered the same brand of pellets.
Ghost
Well-known member
From what I've heard, with rabbits sudden food changes can easily kill rabbits. Guinea pigs are a bit more forgiving about feed changes, even still I would prefer giving GPs some transition time.
After a week off pellets I've decided it's just much easier to use about 8 pounds of pellets daily. It takes more time to separate hay from the bale to a day's portion. Even though I can get free vegetable trimmings from the organic food store, it has to be used right away before it starts composting. Too bad I can't just have all the rabbits in a large pen and just toss in a bale of hay and all the trimmings at one time.
