I found a place near me that sells Marten pellets

[Maureen Las]

My buns were used to an alfalfa based pellet and hate Oxbow. What I have done is mix 3 pellets together... Kaytee timothy pellets, Kaytee Supreme and Exact. I still think they leave the timothy ones. I have heard about Marten pellets (high fiber, low protein?) and found a place near me that sells them. Would Marten pellets alone be better than what I am doing? There are two green bags which is the correct one.? Are Marten pellets really that good. I have one overweight bun and one with too many cecals. Thanks

 

[Dittani]

In my opinion, Kaytee products are overpriced andnot nutritionally-sound, and similarcheaply-made products made my bunslazy and unhealthy.

I started feeding my buns Purina show formula, and it is by far the best food i've ever seen for bunnies. I only paid $17 for a huge 50lb bag, and the difference in them is noticable. Their coats are much thicker and shinier, their muscle tone is fantastic, and I swear they're more energetic than before :?Haha... Nutritionally speaking, it's the best food out there, and my little ones love it. You can get it at your local feed store, just call around first.

 

[JimD]

Hi angieluv.

Saw you post about finding PURINA.

I have used the Purina Complete Blend (green bag) for all of my buns. The high fiber, low protein helps with the buns that produce excess cecals. And the price is good.

Right now they are all on a half&half combination of the PurinaComplete and Kaytee Timothy Complete and they are all doing very well.

I tried the Kaytee Supreme and it gave runny poops to Brindle and S'more.

I'd like to try the Purina Show Formula (blue bag), but I'd have to special order it. Buck Jones used it for years with good results.

~Jim

 

[Runestonez]

I feed our kids a mix of 2 types of pellets, one of which is the Martins brand. We feed the Martins Less Active Adult Rabbit Food. It has the lowest protien and highest fibre I have found so far: protein 15% and fibre 22%. The bunns seem to like it.

 

[Maureen Las]

I am going to this feedstore today (just learned about it) both Martens and Purina Complete sound good to me Thanks a lot everyone. I'll let you know what I come home with.

 

[Maureen Las]

Runstonez..What else do you feed with the martins?

 

[MyBabyBunnies]

I'm feeding Kaytee Timothy Complete at the moment, well, I'm working on switching them. The Oxbow are too expensive for me but I need a low protein diet for Mocha so I'm sticking with the only other Timothy pellet in the area.

Spice refuses to eat Timothy pellets (but loves Timothy hay) and I've been trying for nearly a month to switch him over and it hasn't worked, he wont touch them so I'm just leaving him on the Alfalfa pellets because he has not had a problem with it. I'm going to try to switch him to Martins Alfalfa pellets though if I can find them.

I'm not sure about Purina but others have answered that. As for their current diet, it doesn't sound very good. Kaytee Timothy Complete is ok, but Kaytee Exact and Supreme are basically crap and based on what I've heard about Purina, their stuff is much better than most Kaytee pellets.

 

[Runestonez]

Everybody around here all sell Living World brand foods. When we got the girls they were already eating LW Extrusion...so we still give them a bit of that and mix it with the Martins. That way if we ever run out of one or the store is out we still have the other! The Extrusion has 16% protien and 21% fiber.

 

[Pipp]

I use Martin Little Friend Less Active, the contents and density seem great, all the bunnies love them. I mix it with the Oxbow pellets and the cheap bulk alfalfa pellets that came with my former fosters, each bunnyget different amounts, depending on their 'issues'.

Watch forwhitepee, if you get some, you can play guinea pig. The calcium is low but somebody questionedthe phosphorous content on the Etherbun board, I'm waiting for more info to pop up on EB. I've gotacouple buns withexcess calicumin their output, but I'm feeding them too many things at the moment tonarrow it down.

The backroom bunnies inhale the stuff, and they don't have any problems at all. (They also eat alot of hay).

sas

 

[Pet_Bunny]

Runestonez wrote:

Living World Extrusion has 16% protien and 21% fiber.

The Extrusion an Alfalfa Meal. I give Pebbles 2 or 3 pieces a day as a treat.

I don't think Purina is available where I live. By the way, do you save the Purina Points?

http://www.showchowrewards.com/prize1.html

Rainbows!

 

[MyBabyBunnies]

Pet_Bunny, Purina is known as LabDiet in this area. I just don't feel comfortable feeding it because the LabDiet's contain animal fat and BHA, I don't want to be feeding my rabbits animal fat.

 

[Runestonez]

The only Timothy based food(other than Martins)I have found here is hated by our bunns they will not touch the stuff. I only mix a bit of the Extrusion in with the Martins but since our bunns don't eat too much in the way of pellets...it's not really an issue right now! If they started really digging into their pellets I'd have to rethink the Extrusion. I was more worried about the petstore running out ofMartins(we only have 1 store in our area that carries it)and the bunns not having pellets. A little unrealistic since the grocery store would have to run out of greens too before they starved! You would think with the number of rabbit foods out there that there would be more available that are good for your bunn! It seems 90% of the foods are alfalfa based.(at least in this area anyway!) I am hoping that the more popular house bunns become, that they will develop appropriate foods for them.

 

[Runestonez]

Does anyone have a link to Purina that shows who in Canada might carry their products?? All I can find is cat and dog food!:?

Or that has a breakdown of it's make up??

 

[Jess_sully]

http://www.rabbitnutrition.com/rabbit/index_rabbit.html

Here's a link to their rabbit food website

DITTANI- I noticed that you said you use large 50 lb. bags. A feed store near me sells them for only $11.00, but what do you do to keep all of that food from expiring? Do you freeze it or anything?

 

[MyBabyBunnies]

Here is the link I was taking about. LabDiet is indeed just Purina.

http://www.labdiet.com/indexlabdiethome.htm

You can go to distribution, select Canada and it will show you the distibutors in Canada, click on rheir name to contact them. They also have all ingredients and nutritional information listed on this site.

 

[Dittani]

JimD wrote:

I'd like to try the Purina Show Formula (blue bag), but I'd have to special order it. Buck Jones used it for years with good results.

~Jim

It really is fantastic! I've converted all of my bunny-owning friends to the ways of Show Formula, and as I said, you can literally see the difference in all of our bunnies.

 

[MyBabyBunnies]

See, even thecheap pellets I'm feeding seem better than the Show Formula based on the website.

Guaranteed Analysis
Crude Protein, not less than 16.0%
Crude Fat, not less than 3.5%
Crude Fiber, not less than 15.0%
Crude Fiber, not more than 20.0%
Calcium, not less than 0.7%
Calcium, not more than 1.2%
Phosphorus, not less than 0.4%
Salt, not less than 0.5%
Salt, not more than 1.0%
Vitamin A, not less than 4000 IU/lb

The only difference is that mine are actually higher in fiber and lower in fat. Personally I think there is not enough fiber and too much fat in it and I had lots ofissues with excess cecals with 16% protein that I'm not having with 14% protein.

 

[Maureen Las]

Hi..I'm back from the feed store that I just discovered with a 25lbs. bag of Purina Rabbit Chow Complete Blend. It cost $7.00. They don't have the ingredients on the bag but didhave them posted at the store. Unfortunately I only glanced at it. It is 16% protein and 20% fiber I looked at the ingredients and didn't recognize anything like timothy alfalfa etc. It looked like a bunch of left-over stuff thrown into it. Jim D. How can anything this cheap be quality feed? How do I know what makes up the fiber and protein? Does it have a lot of fat in it? I need some support if I am going to feed them this as I practically can't trust anything this cheap.

 

[Dittani]

I do not rely on their pellets as their only source of fiber. Of course, if you *did* rely on the pellets as their only source of dietery fiber, then the show formula would be inadequate.

My bunnies have unlimited amounts of hay - It covers the top 2 floors of their cage and is replaced every 2 days (that's on the rare instances that they don't eat it all), and they have a 'hay station' in every room that they are allowed to go in, as well as a constant supply of fresh, green hay in the form of mini-bales that I construct myself. I think it is unfortunate that people look to pellets to provide every aspect of a bunny's nutritional needs in and of itself.

 

[MyBabyBunnies]

Is this the stuff?

http://www.rabbitnutrition.com/rabbit/prod_complete_plus.html