Pets at Home is supporting Rabbit Awareness Week (RAW) by maintaining its ban on selling rabbit muesli in its 440 stores.

Removing this food from a rabbit’s diet is the key campaign theme for RAW’s 2018 activity, which runs from 2nd – 10th June. ‘Move Away from Museli’ was selected as the theme by the group because it wishes to draw attention to the poor nutrition that such a diet offers.

This opinion is fully supported by Pets at Home which first banned rabbit muesli sales from its stores in April 2013. The ban followed research conducted by The University of Edinburgh & Burgess Pet Care that demonstrated rabbits fed on a muesli diet are more likely to suffer from dental and digestive problems, as well as obesity.

Instead, Pets at Home suggests rabbit owners who haven’t already made the switch to alternative diets get behind RAW’s campaign and move towards a diet that is primarily built around hay with the occasional mixture of leafy greens and rabbit nuggets.

Dr Maeve Moorcroft, head of pets at Pets at Home, said: “We’re proud to support responsible pet ownership and pleased to have not sold this potentially harmful food type for rabbits in our stores for five years. It’s great that RAW is continuing to draw attention to this issue and we hope that Move Away from Muesli helps to encourage a positive change in what rabbit owners feed to their floppy eared friends.”

Pets at Home is also supporting rabbit welfare by banning the sale of rabbits during the Easter Bank Holiday, when interest in their potential as a pet increases due to children’s love of the Easter bunny. Instead, the retailer will run free instore workshops around rabbit care and points to consider when looking into taking on a rabbit as a pet. 

For more information on Pets at Home, please visit: www.petsathome.com.