Pet Habitat South Africa

<< Back To Blog List

21 Oct 2023

What Is The Best Small Animal Pellet Food In South Africa?

Posted By : Guest

Pellets are a complementary addition to your rabbit, guinea pig or chinchilla's diet and can be a source of nutrition when fed correctly. Originally, pellets were developed as a cheap way to feed livestock and these earlier foods tended to be high in fat content and lacked the high quality nutrition needed to support long term health and wellbeing.

However, good-quality, high-fibre pellet diets are now more widely available. They often contain a base of grass (10-15%) with additional herbs and are supplemented with vitamins and minerals. Given properly, and in the correct amounts, high-quality pellets offer a variety of vitamins and minerals that can support good health. They should be provided as part of a balanced diet.

Bunny Nature, a manufacturer in Germany, makes pellets for small animals with unique recipe that contains an even higher content of grass, plants and herbs (50-60%) that originate from your pet's natural habitat.

Rabbits and guinea pigs need a high fibre diet made up of 80-90% high quality feeding hay (not bedding hay), 10% fresh leafy greens, 5-10% pellets, and the occasional healthy treat.

Your pets should also have constant access to fresh, clean water. Overfeeding pellets, or giving poor-quality cheap pellets, can cause health issues such as obesity and digestive problems.

Bunny Nature Pellet Diets

Bunny Nature is a family owned business in Germany that is founded with love for animals. Their goal, which they continue to pursue to this day, is to produce optimal and healthy food for small animals, which is perfectly tailored to their original natural habitat and needs.

This company works closely with leading veterinarians specialized in rodents and integrates scientific research into the production of rodent food and accessories. Bunny Nature was one of the first manufacturers to develop a low-sugar diet for small rodents, which minimizes the risk of diabetes.

The CEO of Bunny Nature says: "When developing and producing animal-friendly food, we always put the animals first. We look at where they come from, what they eat there, what their social behavior and eating behavior look like. It is not only important to provide that information and understand their nutritional needs, but it is also essential to apply this knowledge consistently when choosing the right food. That makes all the difference."

The Bunny Nature Lucky Formula!

Happiness starts with the right, balanced diet. That is the starting point. Rodents that receive appropriate food are happy and healthy. And rodents that don't have to worry about their next meal are extremely happy and healthy. This brings us to the Bunny Nature happiness formula.

Bunny Nature's recipes are always based on the welfare needs of rabbits, guinea pigs and chinchillas. Bunny Nature understands that for nutritional reasons it is necessary to make food available to the animals ad libitum (unlimited), so that they can meet their needs every time without overeating or becoming overweight.

With their unique recipes, Bunny Nature offers optimally balanced food, made from high-quality ingredients and with extremely controlled production to meet the nutritional needs of your furry pet, as nature intended. All this is done without the use of preservatives, flavour enhancers, added sugars, colourings and aromas.

At Bunny Nature, the welfare of the animals comes first, and they strive to offer your rabbit, guinea pig, chinchilla or degus a happy and healthy life through high-quality nutrition and carefully formulated products.

Trimello® Technology

The patented Trimello® shape gives Bunny Nature the opportunity to provide rabbits, guinea pigs, chinchillas and degus – a diet that meets their dietary, physiological and behavioural needs.

The Trimello® allows Bunny Nature to process the plants it contains (42-63 different ones!) in different fibre lengths. On the one hand, the constantly-growing incisors and molars need the essential fibre structure for abrasion.

On the other, the intestine needs a specific fibre length for intestinal peristalsis (movement of food). A very fine particle size is required for the caecum, which works as a fermentation chamber (special bacteria that extracts nutrients).

So why are there two different Trimello® shapes? For one thing, different animals have different chewing movements. While rabbits use a chewing movement like a figure of eight, guinea pigs, degus and chinchillas have a sliding joint that moves back and forth to grind down the food. The different shapes accommodate these differences.

The animals also have different eating behaviour. While rabbits take the food straight into their mouths, guinea pigs, chinchillas and degus behave very differently in the nature. They either take the food directly into their mouths, trap it with their front paws or pick it up and push it into their mouths with their paws. Here, the different shapes caters for 100% of your small pet's natural behaviour.

Nutritional Requirements

The knowledge about rabbit, guinea pig, chinchilla and degus needs and how to put it into practice consistently in animal food makes the difference. The digestive system is especially important for pets to enjoy a healthy and energetic life.

Teeth

There are two incisors on the top and two on the bottom jaw. The two additional pivot teeth behind the upper incisors have no function. The incisors and molars have one thing in common: they never stop growing. That means:

a) the teeth need to be in the right position to allow tooth abrasion, so that the teeth do not grow unchecked

b) the choice of food is a very important factor in the optimum abrasion of the incisors and molars; a coarse fibrous structure is needed

Stomach

The stomach needs to be kept full. It has only very weak muscles and is unable to push the food through into the intestine by itself. Help comes in the form of the next meal, which pushes the food through. That explains why dwarf rabbits, for example, eat an average of 80 -120 small portions per day. These portions need to be tailored to the needs of adult animals or the growth of young dwarf rabbits.

Caecum

The caecum is the fermentation chamber. The fine raw fibre particles are brought here and converted into proteins, B vitamins and vitamin K by special bacteria. The caecum produces caecal droppings, which the animal then eats.

The natural habitat of rabbits and guinea pigs are meadows and forest edges. As folivorous animals their diet consists of a wide variety of green plants. Nature supplements this selection with roots, vegetables and fruit. The natural habitat is exemplary for the development of Bunny Nature species-appropriate diets.

Bunny Nature Trimello shaped pellets offers the following benefits:

Biological diversity: contains 42 - 63 different plants from natural meadows
Balanced recipe for long healthy life: 75 important ingredients that are correctly dosed
3 fibre mix: 3 different fibre lengths for tooth abrasion and healthy intestinal flora
Optimal protein & energy content: perfect supply for entire body
Optimal crude fibre to starch ratio: protects against fattening
Organic, non-GMO ingredients

What Is So Special About Ingredients Of Bunny Nature Trimellos?

Most quality pellets available for rabbits, guinea pigs and chinchillas contains only 10-15% timothy grass.

Bunny Nature trimello-shaped pellets on the other hand contains 60% plants and herbs from your pet's natural habitat. This is a very impressive and unique ingredient list making Bunny Nature pellets most likely the best food for rabbits, guinea pigs and chinchillas.

Bunny Nature Trimellos contains between 42-63 different plants such as:

timothy, meadow fescue, red fescue, meadow foxtail, blue grass, cocksfoot, cow parsley, rough dandelion, meadow chickweed, common yarrow, lady's mantle, vernal grass, field clover, ribwort, meadow sage, meadow trefoil, tall fescue, meadow bellflower, caraway, meadow knapweed, common hornwort, bedstraw-meadow thistle, soft tristle, common dandelion, tussock grass, true meadowsweet, field hornwort, wood strawberry, bird's vetch, gemander speedwell, meadow pippweed, true bedstraw, downy meadow oats, common horsetail, field horsetail, white bedstraw, white cranesbill, fat meadow daisy, field widow's-flower, cuckoo's-flower pink, common loosestrife, field-speedwell, tall oat grass, meadow rye, medium plantain, greater meadow-knap, narrow-leaved vetch, forget-me-nots, meadow saxifrage, lesser burnet, creeping cinquefoil, cowslip, nodding campion, lesser meadow-grass, grass stitchwort, meadow goats-beard, stinging nettle, fragrant speedwell, red clover, bush vetch, geneva goutweed, goutweed, daisies, oat peel bran, sunflower seed extracted, linseed extracted, apple pomace, carrot pomace, wheat bran, rape seed extracted, fennel seeds 0.5%, papaya dried 0.25%, camomile blossoms 0.25%

What Foods Should You Avoid Feeding?

Contrary to popular belief, rabbits and guinea pigs should never be fed a muesli-based diet. Research by the University of Edinburgh in 2013 revealed that muesli style diets can increase the risk of a number of health issues. This is because muesli style diets can encourage selective feeding, where rabbits and guinea pigs will often reject the nutritious parts of the mix, which can result in:

Obesity
Dental issues
Digestive problems – the gut can stop working altogether in serious conditions
Uneaten sticky droppings, attracting flies that lay eggs and cause flesh-eating maggots.

There are lots of foods that are great for our small pets. High quality feeding hay is easy to buy in store, or online. And you will be able to find high quality rabbit pellets such as Bunny Nature Trimellos.

Tags : What Is The Best Pellet Small Animal Food In South Africa? , What Are The Best Quality Pellets To Feed Rabbits , Guinea Pigs , Chinchillas & Degus , What Is Best Pellets To Feed Your Rabbits , Guinea Pigs