Is there a secret to keeping the little buggers from scratching most of their feed out of their feeders! I have a few that are horrible. Any suggestions welcomed! Thanks
Sometimes I will have a litter who insist on scrabbling. I take a piece of 1" x 2" cage wire and cut it to fit the tray of the FineX feeder. Leave some long pieces of wire extending to poke through the feeder wire and fold it back. Otherwise they will consider it a mission to remove that wire! Wedge the wire in very securely. The rabbits can eat but it cuts back on the feed scrabbling. Sometimes the wire can be removed after a week or so. If a lot of rabbits have decided to scrabble the feed all of a sudden, I would think something might be different about the feed formula.
We only have a couple of pet bunnies, but we found changing the feed stopped them scratching it all out.
I watched my bunnies and the feed is to large for them to eat. So the spit one out and look for a smaller pellet. I made a small box, 1/2 inch plywood 3x10 inch the length of my feeders. with 1 inch sides. Place it under the feeder to catch the pellets. Bunnies chew on the fallen pellets and there is not much waste. I use wire to hold it in place. Hope this helps. Jim
Hello-- Try simply cutting back the amount of food that you give them. Call it a mini diet. Reduce the amount of pellets by half, maybe. In other words, only give them enough so that they want to eat it all. I have found that in my experience (it has happened twice), the rabbit was scratching out the extra food. I would feed them, they would eat until they were full and scratch the remaining food out. It's like a kid playing with their food. It should work after a couple of days. And they won't ever do it again. With going to bed hungry comes much wisdom. Good Luck! --Bobbie
Thanks for the ideas. I did change the feed recently, actually I started mixing the pellets with a grain/soybean meal mix. My worst rabbits are two that are litter mates that I had together until I moved them to their present cages. The one picks out the pellets and the other picks out the grain mix. I suppose it work well while they lived together. I cut down on their feed but they still do it, ugh. I will have to try missing with their feeders I suppose.
My rabbit like to do that too!!!!! What I did was I put the feeder on the cage wall just high enough so they can put their mouth in it to eat!!!!!! It worked for me!!!! The best of luck to you!!!!!
you are mixing different feeds together? that is like mixing peas with choclate kisses... I am throwing out the peas to get to the kisses! feed one at a time or find a feed that is a complete ration. fed one feed in a dish and the pellets in their container.. They won't rifle though it to get to the good stuff.
You need a feed that is just pellets, nothing fancy. Otherwise you have a very good chance of more rabbits being choosy and picky. Besides, then you know that they are getting what they need and not picking and choosing. THAT is your basic problem, it's like a kid eating all the good stuff and leaving the broccoli.
A complete pelleted (only) feed made as a minnie pellet would be the first thing to do. The smaller the pellet is in diamiter and in length, the less wast by young bunnies. Preg. does will often dig in the feed in an atempt to make nest, and some board or agreasive youngsters will dig as well. One way to reduce this is to cut a peace of floor wire the length of the inside of the feeder and three or four inches tall and slip it down between the feeder and the cage wire, all the way to the bottem of the feeder. The cage and the feeder will hold it in place and will reduce the flow of feed enough to reduce waste with out reduceing feed intake. I have many more tips on many aspects of rabbit raiseing. David
