The extrusion process is a bit different than the regular pelleted feed. Instead of being tubular hard spaghetti shaped pellets, they are round little puffs that don't look much different than what they turn into later, little puffs of bunny poop. This process seemed to make the feed more palpable and also easier for the babies to grasp and eat. Long tubular pellets are sometimes too long for babies to eat and they try to take a bit and nip off a piece and the other end either ends up in the feed dish or unfortunately in the litter pan wasted. Plus just looking at the much harder, shiny tubular pellets didn't look as tasty to me. Some folks complained that there were a lot of "fines" in the Show Hutch. I found this to be true and would have to strain out the fines dust before feeding to the rabbits. I put up with it because of how well the rabbits ate and how well they did on the Show Hutch. Over the past couple of years, the fines had diminished greatly. Fines can be created in the processing of the feed but also if the feed bags are handled over and over, breaking down the pellets and "dusting" them up in the process.
The Show Hutch's 17% protein seemed to work well for the Hollands and because it is a lighter volume grain, just needed a small tweak in the amount fed. (as in a pound of feathers is a different volume than a pound of jelly beans) You'd feed slightly more Show Hutch than other non-extruded feeds.
Whenever buying a new rabbit it was easy to get them eating the Show Hutch and their preferring it over their own familiar feed. This was evidenced by the 50/50 of their own food mixed with the 'new to them' Show Hutch when only their old food was left behind by next feeding time. At conventions where many folks' animals go off feed I'd give them some Show Hutch and their rabbits would start eating it.
Recently on Facebook in the Northeast Rabbits page have been many posts about problems with the Blue Seal Show Hutch Deluxe. I read them with skepticism as most times feed is blamed for issues that arise out of poor animal husbandry or worse, poor luck. Either rabbits are off feed, not conceiving, kindling issues, poor condition, multiple molts etc. Later a more probably reason than feed comes to light. The issues people were having was the rabbits getting an increase of night feces preceding getting diarrhea, going off feed and some passing away.
After talking to others that had an issue with particular numbered batches and moe than a reasonable amount of negative posts, then the feed company stating that certain feed number batches were being tested I had my doubts. Other people were posting that they'd not had any problems with the Show Hutch.
I am not one to switch feeds, only ever been on 3 feeds in over 30 years. Some people's herds do better on one feed than another, not always because of one feed being better than another. Just as what you and I get for groceries may be different, some like Jiff and some like Skippy! Plus different parts of the country can only get some types of feed.
Last weekend when picking up feed I was faced with accepting two bags of the "suspect" batch numbered bags. As much as I hated to switch feeds, I did not want to put my 3 litters and hopefully bred does at risk, not to mention the rest of the herd. I made the very-hard-for-me decision to switch to a different feed. We picked up 2 bags of Poulin 16. The rabbits are getting it 50/50 with the "good" Deluxe I had leftover and most are switching okay. There are some holdouts that are leaving the new Poulin behind but they will have to come around sometime. Plenty of hay is being given to these neigh-sayers. (sorry for the pun)
It's not that I will never go back to Show Hutch Deluxe as I truly loved the extruded feed and so did the rabbits. Another of those things that time will tell. I thought I'd blog about this as others may have noticed a change in their rabbits on Show Hutch or may be wondering what the Facebook hoopla is all about.
This is my experience so far. None of my rabbits had any issues from the Show Hutch that I was feeding, I just wasn't sure about feeding about any batches that may be a problem.