My Boy's Won't Eat Bunny Or Vitakraft Pellets.

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jenny57

jenny57

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Hi, I decided to switch my boys from Burgess Excel to Bunny and Vitakraft and it has been a disaster. I bought two different kinds to make sure that they would eat at least one. I switched them over gradually, and for the last few days they have been solely on the new stuff but they haven't touched it. I am worried that they will become deficient in some vital vitamin or mineral. They have their veggies twice a day and unrestricted Timothy Hay. Has anyone any suggestions or should I o back to excel. Thank you!
 
You could go back to Excell - it won't do any harm. - there are some owners on here who do not feed pellets at all - just hay and veg -
 
it won't do them any harm, but maybe you could add some excel back in for now and hope that over the coming weeks/months, they eat the other pellets aswell. :)
 
I would carry on feeding the mix of the old and new for now, they do take some getting used to. Is it old or new recipe Bunny? how big are the pellets?
 
Hi. I'm guessing you decided to make the switch after the good things people have said on here about Bunny and Vitacraft?

I'm also strongly persuaded by those. When we first got piggies they came with a muesli mix they were used to eating. It took quite a while to persuade them to eat the nuggets (excel mint ones) so I wouldn't give up yet. Personally I'd give it a couple of weeks of just either bunny or Vitacraft before saying they are not going to take to it.

Just keep giving hay and veg as you normally would. If you increase veg then they are less likely to try the pellets.

As said above, pellets are not supposed to be a big part of their diet anyway so don't worry too much for the few weeks you are going to be trying to make the switch. You could always try and give a higher proportion veg than you might usually that are high in vit c to help ease your mind.
 
Thank you all for your helpful comments. The burgess nuggets are larger than they used to be Helen, is this a factor?
I will give then a few old nuggets but I will persevere with the new ones too. Fussy boys!
Your help is always appreciated folks, will keep you posted.
 
It took 5 months to completely switch from burgess to bunny. I had a bag of bunny and still put 8 burgess nuggets in with the bunny every night. They wolfed the burgess down first and left the bunny... now they are solely on Bunny they will not run to it like the burgess but....when I get up in the morning its all gone ha. I break the pellets in half. They are softer anyway than burgess so thats not an issue regarding eating I dont think. Burgess are tasty also but I changed due to the sugar content in them.

Since being on Bunny my boys are far more energetic and their skin and eyes are bright and beautiful! They started to me on museli then I changed to burgess now bunny.

Some piggies don't have pellets as its only 5% of their diet....lets face it in the wild they don't get pellets do they :) if my boys had not taken to Bunny after time I would have stopped pellets altogether rather than feed them crap they don't need ie-extra sugar etc.

Helen informed me the recipe for bunny has changed now anyhow and its even tastier than before app!

Will def be posting how it turns out when I get a new bag!
 
My 6 month old Amos is now a complete convert to Bunny. My 3 year old Sergei was harder to convince to change but I mixed pellets and bunny and gradually reduced pellets and increased Bunny. Sergei now eats all his Bunny mainly overnight as he has come to realise he wont be getting the amount of pellets he used to get. This has taken about 3 months to achieve.
 
worried val of york said:
My 6 month old Amos is now a complete convert to Bunny. My 3 year old Sergei was harder to convince to change but I mixed pellets and bunny and gradually reduced pellets and increased Bunny. Sergei now eats all his Bunny mainly overnight as he has come to realise he wont be getting the amount of pellets he used to get. This has taken about 3 months to achieve.
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Just like my boys...gotta stick them out and ignore the pup eyes. It's funny Sergei is like my two....waits until overnight once he realises the humans are more stubborn ha!
 
It took a good while for mine to switch too, but once they learnt they weren't getting anything else they ate them. Now they are all waiting at the bowl as I fill it before bed and with the new recipe ones the bowls are empty by morning.

Funniest thing was Fuzzy with a whole Bunny pellet sticking out of her mouth reversing as fast as she could into a pigloo. At one point she was so small I was told her mouth would be too small for any kind of dental treatment if she ever needed it, but she has done so well on her heart meds that she can now fit a whole Bunny pellet in her mouth as her mouth has grown with her.
 
That's a lovely mental picture of your Fuzzy. I am still working on my two 5 year old who are a little harder to convince. But I am persevering
 
TAN said:
You could go back to Excell - it won't do any harm. - there are some owners on here who do not feed pellets at all - just hay and veg -
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Yes, absolutely, trying to keep Pigson's weight down, I feed just greens and hay. I have to give him a nice juicy piece of pepper and Teddy a handful of pellets!
 
Please do not worry. It took mine a while to eat vitakraft. I broke them in half as they are big. Excell is so full of sugar that they are like sweets so naturally they will hold out hoping they get them. Mine now enjoy vitakraft.
 
Mine aren't keen on Bunny either but I'm using up all my stock of pellets & muesli & will try again when there's nothing else. If they don't eat it I won't give them anything else. I don't think it will make a great lot of difference as they get a very mixed variety of at least 10 different veggies a day. I'm hoping to get them on Bunny eventually but it may take a while.
 
Stewybus said:
Mine aren't keen on Bunny either but I'm using up all my stock of pellets & muesli & will try again when there's nothing else. If they don't eat it I won't give them anything else. I don't think it will make a great lot of difference as they get a very mixed variety of at least 10 different veggies a day. I'm hoping to get them on Bunny eventually but it may take a while.
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Mine would not eat bunny but like the vitakraft. Maybe yours would too?
 
piggyfan said:
Mine would not eat bunny but like the vitakraft. Maybe yours would too?
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I'll have to look at Vitakraft but at present I've got more guinea pig food that the average small pet shop!
 
Have you had your bag a while Stewart? if so they may like the new recipe one when you next order a bag, the pellets are a bit smaller and softer and mine go mad for them.
 
i'm hoping to try the bunny pellets with eddie and mollie. eddie is on oxbow and mollie came to us with excel mint pellets, so at the moment they're having a mix of the two but once the excel are gone, i'll just stick to oxbow and then get some bunny to try with them. hope they like them. :)
 
Hi all, I have two very happy piggies as I gave them a few Excel nuggets along with the Bunny and Vitakraft with their supper tonight. They even ignored the veggies to eat them first! All the Excel have been scoffed, leaving the sad and rejected Bunny and Vitakraft sitting forlornly in their bowls waiting to be eaten.
I will not be beaten into submission by two cute furry faces though, I will persevere with the war of wills just wish they wouldn't look at me as though I am losing the plot.
 
jenny57 said:
Hi all, I have two very happy piggies as I gave them a few Excel nuggets along with the Bunny and Vitakraft with their supper tonight. They even ignored the veggies to eat them first! All the Excel have been scoffed, leaving the sad and rejected Bunny and Vitakraft sitting forlornly in their bowls waiting to be eaten.
I will not be beaten into submission by two cute furry faces though, I will persevere with the war of wills just wish they wouldn't look at me as though I am losing the plot.
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Doesn't it show you how sweet excell is? Mine were hooked on it too.
 
Yes it does, I wish I could go back in time and have started them on Bunny, the bit that sold them to me is that they were recommend by vets!
I think that the labelling on products like these should be much clearer and say in bold writing on the front of the bag"These pellets contain sugar". We all try to do the best for our animals and I don't liked to feel as though I've been conned into buying something super healthy when its not.
 
Which Burgess are you feeding? with or without mint?
 
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