Rant about rabbit pellets

[NZminilops]

:rant:

The rabbit food in this country is terrible! I've been trying to get agood quality rabbit pellet for almost a year now (since finding RO andlearning about food :wave2) and have had no luck yet. In Zew Zealandpellets are mostly for breeders and have a high fat and proteincontent, or pet store pellets that have so much fat and cereal treatsin them and cost so much that it isn't worth it.

ALL pellets I have found are lucerne (same thing as alfalfa) based. Iam finding so many excess cecals in the rabbit cage each morning thatit's not funny, and half the cage had carpet so it's a nightmare if oneof the bunnies stands on them. They eat a lot of hay (which I think isa mix of grass and oat hay) but it doesn't help at all.

I can get kaytee rainbow (?) rabbit pellets but at almost $40 per 5pound bag it just doesn't seem worth it. I could also get betterpellets shipped over but the shipping alone is $60 for one bag!

At the moment I have the choise of $9.95 for a 10kg bag of pellets thatare too high in protein but easy to get hold of an cheap, or $12.50 fora 10kg bag of pellets with more fibre, less fat and a bit less proteinbut still too much I think. The $9.95 pellets are yellow and the $12.50ones are are darkish green.

What do the different colours indicate? The yellow pellet also hassomething in it to prevent some sort of intestinal mite. It has fishmeal in it too, what on earth do rabbits need fish in their food for?The rabbits ages are 3 years, 6 months and 3.5 months.

*edit* the 3 year old barely eats any pellets, she's more intovegetation so it's not a worry with her. It's the indoor youngerbunnies that are having the excess cecals.

 

[pamnock]

Fish meal is commonly used as a protein sourcein animals feeds. Perfectly an acceptable source of proteinin rabbit feeds.Companies use what sources arereadily available to mill the feeds.

The yellow pellet is most likely medicated with a anti-coccidial - no longer added to our US feeds.

The primary concern is the nutritional value of the feed, rather thanthe exact ingredients (which can vary widely) to get the propernutrition balance.



Pam

 

[NZminilops]

There isn't much of an indication of nutritionalvalue in the pellets on the back of the bags, they also have much lessingrediants in them then say the kaytee or other common American rabbit(pet) feeds.

The yellow pellets are PCL, and the ones I am using now are the greenerones which the rabbits don't seem to like much anyway, called countryharvest. PCL has instructions for feeding adlib for lactating does andfor meat rabbits, nothing about pet rabbits. The country harvestrecomends 100 grams a day per pet rabbit.

The ingrediants are: lucerne meal, maize, barley, pollard, soya beanmeal, coconut meal, limestone, dicalcium phosphate, salt, minerals andvitamens, molasses and synthetic amino acids.

The nutritional info is:
crude protein 17% minimum
fibre 15% maximum
fat 5% maximum
salt 0.6% maximum

That's about all the info. The PCL pellets have even more protein andfat and only 9% fibre and similar ingrediants, but the rabbits do likethe taste better.

Is it ok for such young rabbits to perhaps eat more greens and less pellets?

 

[pamnock]

Yes - minimal pellets with a variety of greens and vegetables is fine for young rabbits.

Pam

 

[cheryl]

Hi minilops!

I was just thinking,could you get somethingshipped over fromAustralia?,or better still,i found these pellets,they are just yourordinary pellets,and they are so far the very best that i have comeacross,but they still contain lucerne though,but that is just thething,you will never find a nice healthy pellet brand here,but thesepellets are fantastic! The company is called Barastoc and they exportaround the world,so i cannot see why they cannot export to NZ...youcould always email them to find out



Yeah i wish we had,what they've got



cheryl

 

[NZminilops]

Hi cheryl13 (and thanks pamnock too!).

I did find some more kaytee stuff here but its sooo expensive! I don'tknow why something that costs about 8 bucks US$ would be 40 buncks NZ$.I wonder if oxbow sell a pellet here?

I'll look up Barastoc and see what I can find out .

Thanks
Me and the buns

 

[canela_2004]

fish meal? ew! what is that doing in feed for an herbivorous animal?

 

[chrisl1976]

just checked Oxbows website:

New Zealand

http://www.oxbowhay.com/link.sp?page=international_new_zealand

Ponsonby Veterinary Centre46-48 Pollen St.
Grey Lynn,
Auckland

 

[chrisl1976]

Canela


You would be surprized how much stuff contains Fish Meal as a Protien Source.

Its a easy way of getting alot of protien into small amounts.