Is there ANYBODY from NEW ZEALAND?

[NZminilops]

Hi everyone, I doubt if there is anyone herethat can help but I thought I would ask. I am having huge troublefinding a good pellet feed her in New Zealand. We don't have the rangethat the luckier people in the USA have and it's very annoying. Theonly feeds I can find from farming stockests are very high in fat andprotein and way low in fibre (like 20% or more protein, 9% and lowerfibre) and are meant for meat rabbits for eating. I have pet andbreeding rabbits and this is not suitable at all. To make matters worsealmost none of them will eat hay, and I can't even find a decent haysupplier either! I don't think we have timothy hay. We havesomething called lucerne chaff that a lady at a horse feed store saidwould be great fibre for rabbits but I don't know what that is.

It's driving me mad. The nonly other pet foods are the junk lookingones the petshops sell full of sunflower seeds and cereal treats. Theyare no good. My older doe is getting almost constant runny poo from thecrap pellets and her mucky bum is horrible, I have to clean it at leastonce a day.

Any ideas would be most welcome as I am getting desperate.

 

[cheryl]

Hi minilops!

i live in Australia,just a hop,skip and a bigggg jump away from you,andi can relate to the not being able to find good pellets like our goodfriends in usa,we just dont have what they do,the lucerne hay which theamericans call alfalfa hay is ok for baby bunnies up until about 6months of age,it has to much protein for an older bunny,and it can makethem fat if given to much,do you have any other kinds of hay over therelike oaten hay,that is what i give my bunnies,timothy hay is again anamerican product,we dont have it here in australia so im certain thatyou dont have it over there.Can you just get plain pellets therewithout all that junk in it or is that all you can get over there?eveni have searched high and low looking for a good pellet for my buns,buti get the same answer all the time,the pellets we get were just meantfor the meat bunny to fatten them up quicker,all the pellets over hereare lucerne based,i have even sent a few emails to a few companies thatmake the pellets asking if a healthier brand can be made,but i neverhear anything back,maybe they are just not interested:?



ps..i moved this thread into the rabbits only section



cheryl

 

[Maureen Las]

Isn't it true that there was a period inAustralia where rabbits over ran the country and were eradicated byintroducing Myxamatosis to kill them?? I would guess that manyAustralians may think of rabbits as pests and that may be the reasonthat you can't find decent food or hay for them. What aboutvegetables? What kinds of veggies can you buy or grow in Australia?

 

[Maureen Las]

Just wanted to add that I think that bothAustralia and New Zealand are extremely cool countries which I wouldLOVE ro visit (even if they don't have good rabbit pellets and hay)

 

[NZminilops]

Thanks for the reply cheryl, it's veryfrustrating and nice to have someone else to talk about it with . Thepellets I am currently feeding them are PCL brand, they are plain butlike you said meant for rabbits to fatten them up for eating. They have:

Protein minium 10%
Fat maximum 5.5%
Fibre maximum 9%
Salt maximum 1.5%

The only other plain kinds I have found are NRM:

Protein minimum 20%
Fat maximum 8%
Fibre maximum 17%
Salt maximum 1%

And the other is a no name, no information pellet in a bin and a localbulk buy shop. So as you can see it's sort of the lesser of threeevils. I also emailed the companies and asked about making a petfriendly feed but they said it wasn't viable as they wouldn't makeenough money from it :growl:

I have asked around some horse places and they had the lucerne chaffand some meadow hay, so I guess I'll try the meadow hay and see whathappens. Hopefully the buns take a liking to it.

angieluv, we can grow the same vegies as what you can, here in Oz andNZ . I buy greens for the buns but I am just worried about thefibre intake more than anything because none of them seem to eat theirhay. They just pee on it or chuck it around for fun. I cut a lot ofgrass for them every day so hopefully that's enough.

 

[cheryl]

angieluv wrote:

Isn't it true that there was a period in Australia whererabbits over ran the country and were eradicated by introducingMyxamatosis to kill them?? I would guess that many Australians maythink of rabbits as pests and that may be the reason that you can'tfind decent food or hay for them. What about vegetables? Whatkinds of veggies can you buy or grow in Australia?

This is exactly true,and a lot of australian people just see them aspests,but to me they are cute little pests ,but im sure this is whythe companies dont really care.



cheryl

 

[cheryl]

minilops wrote:

Thanks for the reply cheryl, it's very frustrating and niceto have someone else to talk about it with . The pellets I amcurrently feeding them are PCL brand, they are plain but like you saidmeant for rabbits to fatten them up for eating. They have:

Protein minium 10%
Fat maximum 5.5%
Fibre maximum 9%
Salt maximum 1.5%

The only other plain kinds I have found are NRM:

Protein minimum 20%
Fat maximum 8%
Fibre maximum 17%
Salt maximum 1%

And the other is a no name, no information pellet in a bin and a localbulk buy shop. So as you can see it's sort of the lesser of threeevils. I also emailed the companies and asked about making a petfriendly feed but they said it wasn't viable as they wouldn't makeenough money from it :growl:

I have asked around some horse places and they had the lucerne chaffand some meadow hay, so I guess I'll try the meadow hay and see whathappens. Hopefully the buns take a liking to it.

angieluv, we can grow the same vegies as what you can, here in Oz andNZ . I buy greens for the buns but I am just worried about thefibre intake more than anything because none of them seem to eat theirhay. They just pee on it or chuck it around for fun. I cut a lot ofgrass for them every day so hopefully that's enough.

whoa,that first lot of percentages dont look very good,im not sureexactly what the percentages are on the pellets that i buy,i cannotremember,i will get back to you on that one,one thing you could try toget your buns to eat hay is put a little apple juice on it and see ifthat entices them.



cheryl

 

[Maureen Las]

Many people in the US. don't have any respectfor rabbits either...even if it appears otherwise. They think rabbitsare cute, buy one for their child, place it in a hutch outside andignore it. We may have more selection of food but many of our rabbitslive terrible lives either in shelters or as lab animals. We have a hayhere called orchard grass which is similar to timothy..I would guessthat meadow grass could be the same as orchard grass (not sure butmaybe)

 

[NZminilops]

Same here angieluv. My two buns belonged to the11 year old daughter of my mothers friend, she would only feed themwhen she remembered and they had about 3 inches of waste and rotten hayin their hutches. And I'm not talking just one corner or anything, butthe entire hutch! Her reasoning was "they like it that way" so as youcan see it is hard to convince the rabbits that hay is something to beeaten now.
The applejuice idea is good, I'll give that a try and let you know howit works out . I've even wrapped spinach around a blade of hay to getthe doe to eat it, that worked but it would take a lot to get much hayin her.

What I thought might work would be to remove all traces of hay from thehutches altogether for a week and just fed pellets and grass etc etc asnormal, then get a hay rack and find the nicest smelling hay I canfind, remove pellets etc for around 4 hours and put some hay in, theymight get the idea it's something to eat if they are hungry enough.

And yes cheryl they are shocking percentages, in both cases way toomuch protein. However the doe is nursing and recovering from a very badlife that she had at her previous house and is pretty thin, so it mightbe helping her to get some fat on her bones. The girl I took therabbits off let them mate the day before I got them, the evil girl:growl:, she thought it was hilarious when I was shocked with thebabies four weeks later.

 

[Maureen Las]

minilops..I just compared the two pelletingredients you have there to two we have here. 10% protein in the 1stis low but the fiber is also very low...20% protein in the 2nd is highbut the fiber is higher. It is not ideal but why don't you get bothkinds and mix them together. It might be better than either one oneindividually

 

[cheryl]

minilops wrote:

Same here angieluv. My two buns belonged to the 11 year olddaughter of my mothers friend, she would only feed them when sheremembered and they had about 3 inches of waste and rotten hay in theirhutches. And I'm not talking just one corner or anything, but theentire hutch! Her reasoning was "they like it that way" so as you cansee it is hard to convince the rabbits that hay is something to beeaten now.
The applejuice idea is good, I'll give that a try and let you know howit works out . I've even wrapped spinach around a blade of hay to getthe doe to eat it, that worked but it would take a lot to get much hayin her.

What I thought might work would be to remove all traces of hay from thehutches altogether for a week and just fed pellets and grass etc etc asnormal, then get a hay rack and find the nicest smelling hay I canfind, remove pellets etc for around 4 hours and put some hay in, theymight get the idea it's something to eat if they are hungry enough.

And yes cheryl they are shocking percentages, in both cases way toomuch protein. However the doe is nursing and recovering from a very badlife that she had at her previous house and is pretty thin, so it mightbe helping her to get some fat on her bones. The girl I took therabbits off let them mate the day before I got them, the evil girl:growl:, she thought it was hilarious when I was shocked with thebabies four weeks later.

This is why parents should really think before they get a bunny fortheir child,some kids do really well about looking after their animalsand then you get some kids that have more important things to do,so ithink the parents should be the main provider,because most parents knowwhat children are like,so before a child gets a pet the parent shouldseriously think whether they want the responsibility of looking afterthe animal when the child tires of it,because in the end it is theanimal that suffers for it,and i wonder what would have happened tothose babies if they were still in her care.



cheryl

 

[Maureen Las]

I feel that I am most protective of rabbitsrather than other animals because they really have no "voice" at all totell us that something is bothering them. It really touches me deeplythat they can not express their needs.

 

[NZminilops]

She would have given them to the dog to eat shesays. There were four babies, two girls went to a loving family that Iknow personally who live on a small farm, one boy went to a singlelonely man and has it's own bedroom, and the last boy is still withmum-bunny and I plan to turn him into a house rabbit and he will livein my dining room.

Regarding pellets I think I will do a mixed but limited feed andconcentrate on making hay a part of the diet. For now long grass is thebest thing I can offer them so they get plenty of that. I can usuallytrick them to eat the hay by giving a blade of grass then putting thehay in the mouth while chewing, lol, they don't even notice.

 

[Maureen Las]

I get my hay shipped from a western state..it ismade for small animals and is extremely high quality..I don't thinkthat they do imports but I will find out. the hay is so good therabbits just jump on it. I wish that you had something like thatavailable to you.....Maybe there are wild grasses in Australia and newzealand that are good for bunnies but not something that you you'reaware of? Its a good idea to feed a small amt of pellets and a largeramount of hay

 

[naturestee]

Minilops, are you continuing breeding?If so, you could try using a very limited amount of the mixed pelletsand a mix of the lucerne (alfalfa) and meadow hay. You mighthave to balance it out a little depend on how your buns' health changeswith this, but most rabbits love alfalfa hay so at least they'll beeating some.

I've also found that my buns don't really like to eat hay off thefloor. They poop on it once and they won't touch itagain. They really like their hay racks though. Youcan make hay racks out of all sorts of things, such as plastic tups orwire kitchen gadget-holders. It might encourage them to eatmore, and at the very least it won't be peed on.

 

[NZminilops]

Thanks for that naturestee. No I am not planningon breeding unless I have homes ready for buns, the rabbit was alreadypregnant when I got her and has just one 7 week old kit left. She doeshowever need fattening up as her ribs are very sharp so I am wonderingif a high protein and fat diet would be ok for a few weeks until sheputs on a bit more weight? I plan to build her muscle as well with playtime inside the house and lots of activities. What do you think wouldbe good for a 3-4 year old rabbit to do for fun? She doesn't run orbinky or climb on things but she will walk around and around for a longtime then just flop down and that's about it.

 

[NZminilops]

Ooh, I hope I'm not premeturally excited but Ijust saw on the Kaytee website that they distrubute food to New Zealandso I will call the store (which is just around the corner from me! howcool) and see if they have the Timothy Complete rabbit food. Wish meluck

 

[naturestee]

Timothy Complete would be great! Andyes, you can use alfalfa to help them build body mass.Normally they don't need too much help with that once they're on adecent diet.

My Loki also needed to build up muscle when I first got him.He couldn't even hold his hind legs straight when hehopped. He was always interested in new things and liked togo into cardboard boxes and chew on them. Shredding newspaperis fun and low-key too. Plus there's smaller toys, like theones we talked about here:

http://rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=13214&forum_id=1

She'll probably start doing more once she builds up some muscle anddoesn't feel as tired. Till then, just move things around tomake them look different, and give her different little toys and suchto check out and play with both in and out of her hutch.

 

[NZminilops]

Will do my best , she is not the mostenergetic rabbit! Although she does go crazy if I bring her somedandilions so perhaps offering her food will help get her up off thefloor and running around a bit.

Well I called the shop and they only stock the kaytees rainbow pellets,and at $24.95 NZD per 2 kg's that's a huge amount of money! I currentlypay $10 NZD per 10k's for the food she eats now and it isn't muchdifferent really. They said they could get in the timothy complete butonly if there was a large demand for it, and it would cost even more:tears2:. That is very disapointing as I can't afford $30 a week forthe timothy pellets, I only earn $45 per week working four hours onSaturday as it is. I think what I will have to do is concentrate onfinding a good source of yummy hay instead. A farm nearby is sellingthis years meadow hay for $6 a bale so I will go take a look at that.Thanks for all the help everyone, I appreciate it. This forum is great,I am so glad I found it :bunny18

 

[Maureen Las]

OMG that is a ridiculous amount of money to payfor pellets...it would be amazing if the store sold any...I think its agood idea to concentrate on finding good hay