My rabbit the fussy eater.

As well as being an escape artist - nadine is a very fussy eater. i'm not a rabbit expert - Nadine is my first. I saw her huddled on the white line in the middle of a busy road - so I stopped the traffic and took brought the little time thief home with me.

Anyway - my brother has a friend who is mad-about-rabbits, has 6 of them and over the years has had dozens.

She confirmed for me that Nadine is officially a fussy eater.

I took her to the vet the day after I found her and he explained the idela diet to me - ie: mainly straw, various tyoes mixed up; lots of greens and good quality pellets to make sure she gets all the nutrients.

To my knowledge, in the 3 months since I've had her, Nadine has nibbled ONE pellet and spurned the rst (I've tried 3 brands now).

She will eat meadow straw with flowers and straw with lavender flowers - both of which I can buy at the local bio garden centre, and both of which are much more expensive than a big bag of Timothy hay (which I have and which I mix in with the above, but which gets slept on).

She loves clover - fortunately I live on a mountain which is full of clover. So, each dog walk I take a bag a pick loads of the stuff for her.

She also likes a few other flowers that I can pick on our walks. She loves melon, does not like carrots, carrot greens or lettuce.

She also loves herbs - parsley and basil being her favourite.

I did try just giving her timothy hay and pellets with a few fresh greens. She barely ate anything for a day and a half ! Just drank water.

Julie I don't really think your rabbit is a fussy eater. I suspect that she might have been born in the wild/ urban jungle, as you stated you found her in the middle of the road.

I believe she only eats what she found on her ranging expeditions in the wide outdoors. There she would have gotten herbs and flowers from gardens. People these days tend to buy lettuce rather than grow it themselves, but the do plant herbs and flowers. As the clover are a wild growing plant, and soft and green it would have been one of her favourites, as it is the easiest to get without being eaten by someone's dog in return.

I have three rabbits of my own as well. They dug under the fence of their enclosure (the fence is buried 20 cm deep and surrounded by rocks, and they still got out) and now I let them free range with my geese and ducks.

They do eat pellets, but they were brought up eating it. One day I got really mad because a bird got into my greenhouse and took bites of my prise tomatoes. I were still busy cussing the bird when bunny hopped in and started munching on my tomatoes. I had to apologise to the bird though. I have a lot of veg in my greenhouse, and they only ate the lettuce, tomatoes, celery and green beans. The carrots, eggplant, spinach and onions were bypassed.

I have a patch of alfalfa I grow for my ducks, geese and chickens and the rabbits love those as well.

I suggest that you go on a trail and error project with Nadine. See what she eats and feed her that. Maybe rabbits are like old dogs, you cant teach them new tricks.