So thank you for, listening to this webinar, where we will be covering the the importance of fibre for rabbits, guinea pigs, and chinchillas, and how it affects their overall health and welfare. So we will mainly speak about rabbits, but as we go through the presentation, I will point out specific differences to guinea pigs and chinchillas because there's lots of things that are similar, but there are some key differences between them, which we shall cover as we go through. So one of the most important first places that we start is the five welfare needs.

So the five welfare needs comes from the Animal Welfare Act 2006, and that's a requirement on any of us who have animals in our care, to meet their needs and make sure that they're free from pain and suffering. And so the same five needs apply to every species, but the nuances and. Requirements around each of those needs varies depending on the species itself.

And those 5 needs mean that we need to make sure that we're providing a suitable diet, for the animal and and for their specific life stage and species requirements. We need to make sure that they're living in a suitable environment, and that, you know, they've got appropriate access to exercise, or, you know, kind of warmth and somewhere to shelter. They need to be housed with or apart from other animals.

So for example, when we're talking about rabbits, rabbits are a social species and so, so shouldn't be housed by themselves. They should always have a companion. But in contrast to that, for example, Syrian hamsters, do not like having little friends.

They are proper solitary creatures and so it's appropriate for their welfare for them to be kind of housed singly. And they need to be able to exhibit normal behaviour patterns and ideally at times of the animal's own choosing. So, as we will touch on, for example, again with rabbits, they tend to be most active around dawn and dusk.

So again, that is where the continuous access to, an exercise space is really important because it allows them to exhibit those behaviours at a time of their choosing rather than, for example, kind of, you know, when we decide to let them out into their exercise area. So bearing all of these things in mind when we're setting up housing for any of our animals is really important. And then really importantly, it's making sure that they're protected from pain, suffering, injury and disease.

So in part, that's done by meeting the other four needs. It's by making sure if they should be vaccinated, that they are, if they are ill or they're injured, that they're seen by a vet in an appropriate period of time to make sure that they're not left in pain or suffering. An appropriate treatment can be administered to them.

So as I say, kind of for for any species of five welfare needs is a really great starting point to make sure that we're covering off everything that we need for each animal and meeting their needs. And so across everything that we we do as a business, and we do tend to kind of use those five needs as a touch point, . Going through.

So from the five needs, so as we said, for in the Animal Welfare Act there that there's general guidance in terms of kind of what each species would require. There's then code of practises, which sit underneath that which gives the specifics, and there's code of practises for dogs and cats, etc. But there hasn't been for for our small furries, and in recent times, the code of practise for the welfare of pet rabbits has been developed, and this has been a fantastic piece of work that enshrines into law.

The nuances and specifics of what it means to meet those needs for a rabbit, which is really great. If we take something specific like housing as an example, traditionally, rabbits have been housed in small little hutches at the bottom of the garden with little to no access to exercise runs. And what the code of practise states is the actual requirements in terms of the space that they need as a species.

And so it makes it much clearer for pet owners in terms of what's needed, so it's a handy guide for them. But also kind of really lays out actually if you're not meeting these requirements, you're really not meeting the needs of the animals. And again, coming from, you know, pet retailers or or vet's point of view, again, it's a really great reference point.

We currently don't have one for guinea pigs, and there is work and campaigns underway. In order to try and kind of get that work started and try and move that forward. And ultimately, the ambition would be that we have a code of practise for each of our species because every species, no matter how, how little they are, deserves to be kept in the right way so that they lead a long and healthy and happy life, as a, as a minimum.

So if we think about in the wild, and if we think about how, OK, how do we try and meet all of those needs, what is it that we need to kind of be thinking about. So in contrast to say, dogs, where domestic dogs have evolved over hundreds of years, and are not necessarily as closely related to their wild counterparts as. As kind of, you know, you may think, you know, a small little dachund is, is clearly doesn't look like a little dog that's roaming the wilds.

But something like a husky, you know, it's quite easy for people to think actually there's still quite a close relationship to to wolves there, for example, but actually they have evolved and changed in their behaviours and their needs and their requirements are different and they're fully domesticated. When we think of our small furry pets, so like rabbits, guinea pigs, and chinchillas, they probably are still more akin to their wild counterparts in terms of their requirements from a nutrition and a behavioural and an environment point of view. So I always think it's a really handy thing to think about, you know, what are their lives in the wild like and how might we mimic that or meet those requirements when we look at them in a in a kind of pet domestic setting.

So if we think of rabbits, they would be what we would call grazers, you know, so they're kind of grazing along a kind of ground level. And they're adapted to eat kind of a high fibre, low energy food such as grasses and plants. So they're, they're, they're physically designed to kind of eat those low energy foods, and they're grazing and foraging for kind of large parts of the day.

So it's estimated that in the wild, a rabbit will spend about 70% of its awake time grazing and foraging. So it's a huge amount of of of their kind of their day. And as we said previously, they feed mainly at dawn and dusk, and that's what we call crepuscular.

So it's kind of taking those things into consideration as we move through. So while we have wild rabbits in the countryside, in the UK, we, we don't have, you know, herds of, of little guinea pigs roaming around, but they are, or kind of their their closely related cousins are in, in South America. And again we would describe them as natural grazers, again, they're kind of eating grasses, some plants, herbs, again, a mixture.

They tend to be a little bit more what we would call diurnal, which means that they're eating during the day. So they're kind of, they're, they're a little bit more, in the daytime rather than, than rabbits. And then we have chinchillas, who are also from South America.

And again, in the wild, they would tend to be nocturnal, so they would be most active during the night, but they can adapt, you know, and chatting to colleagues who, who have pet chinchillas, I think some of them adapt a little bit more successful. Than others. Some of them are very active in the middle of the night, where some of them do kind of fit in with their owners a little bit, a little bit more, so there can be a bit of variation.

But again, it's a really natural diet around roots, leaves, bark, cacti, various grasses, etc. So again, all very fibrous, kind of low energy type foods. So again, we really need to bear that in mind when we're thinking of, in a kind of domestic setting, how we are, feeding these animals.

And that's really important. So in terms of their natural diet, so, you know, we tend to refer to them as as fibivores. Really what we're saying there is that they're herbivores, that have a really high fibre requirement in their diet.

They're mainly eating grasses, but, you know, kind of with a little bit of variety kind of within that diet as well. And it's really, you know, it's tough stuff to eat, it's tough on their teeth, and their digestive system, you know, kind of you and I would not be able to successfully just live on, on the foods that that they're eating, . But they have specifically adapted in order to be able to do that, and we in a few slides time, we should go through that so we can kind of explain exactly how it happens.

But in essence, their digestive system relies on a very delicate balance of bacteria, which helps to break down the fibre, and as we'll kind of see, those bacteria are absolutely key and in in certain respects, we're almost feeding the bacteria and then the bacteria what they produce almost feeds the animal, but we shall we shall touch on that in a few moments. And that fibre should be moving through their gut at all times, and that's really, really crucial when we look at their overall health and welfare, and well-being. If we don't have fibre being eaten all of the time, that gut can slow down and it can stop, and we can run into significant issues.

And again, while in the wild, they have the scope to. Travelled significant distances on a daily basis in order to seek out appropriate foods in the wild they were in the pet setting, they rely on us in order to provide the appropriate diet, and that's where it's really important that we know and understand what they need so we can provide it for them because they really are reliant on us. So as I said, you know, we talk about fibre quite a lot.

What is it? So a couple of things. If we look at the back of a packet of food, you will see a measurement called crude fibre.

Crude fibre, is fine as a measurement when we're looking at dog and cat food, and it allows us to compare one food to the other. When we're talking about little species like this, crude fibre isn't the most useful measurement. So from a, a kind of a labelling legislation point of view, crude fibre.

It is a kind of mandatory declaration that we have to put on pack. But as I said, it doesn't tell us the whole story. As a measurement, crude fibre will include some elements that may strictly speaking, aren't fibre, but we'll leave out other elements that we would class as fibre.

So it, you know, it gives us a stake in the ground, but it doesn't tell us the whole story. What does tell us the whole story is what we would term total fibre content or at Burgess, we refer to that as beneficial fibre. And that's what you will see stated on our packs.

And that is, the total content, of the, the food or the product. And that can be divided into two parts. You have digestible fibre and indigestible fibre, and in a couple of moments I'll I'll kind of go through the differences of how they make their way through the gut.

But in essence, they do what they say on the tin. The indigestible fibre is not digested and that makes its way through the gut, and the digestible fibre is what is actually digested, as it makes its way through through the system. And again, both fibre types will be contained within, grasses and haze and also kind of the, the nugget type foods.

And it's that balance and, and variety that's really important, to help them through. The provision of fibre plays a really important role when we look at that behaviour and environmental enrichment. So if we think of that statistic that 70% of their awake time is spent grazing or foraging, if we're not providing them with enough access to grazing or access to good quality feeding hay, they're going to get bored, and that's where we'll start.

To see some negative behaviours coming in. And that could be things like fur fur chewing or pulling or chewing at their housing, or just being a little bit kind of, you know, grumpy with life because they're a bit bored and not that happy. So, you know, fibre plays such an important role both nutritionally, but also from a behaviour point of view.

So as you said, kind of the, you know, that statistic is, is, is really key, and one that you, you know, you'll hear me say multiple times. And in terms of kind of how much of, of that diet should be good quality feeding hay, and again, this is something from chatting to pet owners that we often see is maybe underestimated, should be 85 to 90% of the diet should be good quality feeding hay. And again, we'll talk a little bit in more detail about hay, shortly.

And again, as I said at the outset. I'd say pretty much everything I've said applies to to rabbits, guinea pigs and chinchillas, so they all have that high fibre requirement and all the nuances around fibre, apply to all three species. So to talk through a little bit of kind of what goes on in in that gut, I think it's useful to understand actually what happens to the fibre once it's ingested, so we can understand the importance of it and what happens when things go wrong.

So on the screen you can see 3 illustrations. So from the outside you can see that the three species do look quite different from each other. But internally, in, in one sense or another, there's quite distinct similarities.

So they're what we would describe as a hindgut fermenter, which means, they have this quite large sum. Now, a scum is the same as our appendix, but where our appendix no longer has any function and is quite small, and other than if it becomes inflamed and causes us some trouble, it, we really don't, have anything to do with it for, for all of our lives. For these species, it's a really, really significant organ, and it takes up most of the space within their abdomen.

So my background is as a small animal vet and first opinion practise. And, you know, if we're ever doing surgery on a rabbit as an example, once we would open to the abdomen, pretty much, you know, the first and only thing you can see that greets you as, as you go in, is that sum. So it's a very large but delicate organ, within that hindgut.

Other species that we would class as a hind. Would be horses. So again, there's some similarities and some key differences.

A lot of how they digest, their foods is very similar to these guys. A couple of key differences which we'll touch on. And then you have other species which would be called for gut fermenters.

That would be cattle or sheep, for example, where they have their fermentation vat in the fore or the front part of, of their gut or their stomach. So if we look, as I said, we look at the rabbit, but the others are are broadly similar. The upper intestine is in the stomach is is simple and straightforward and not enormously different from a dog or a cat ourselves or or any other mammal, from that point of view.

So all quite straightforward, and then as I said, it's in the hindgut that we get to this scum. That is this enlarged organ and then kind of the the large gut. As I said, with a guinea pig or a chinchilla, broadly similar, little differences in the chinchilla in the the the gulum part of the of the gut is a little bit larger than than the others, but broadly similar.

So how does the fibre make its way through and how are they able to digest something which for you and I, we would not be able to digest? So if we look at this diagram, and as I said, it references rabbits, but all of this applies to, to guinea pigs and chinchillas, and I'll point out the key differences. So for example, they, they eat their fibrous food, like their grass or their hay or their nuggets, and then that will pass quickly through the stomach and the small intestine.

So they've eaten it, and it's gone through. It then finds its way into the secu, into that large intestine. And at that point, the, The digestible and indigestible fibre is sifted apart.

So through something which is called houseral activity, the gut is able to separate out the digestible from the indigestible fibre. The indigestible fibres is slightly longer, particle size than the digestible, so there is a difference between them. And houseral activity, if you, if you maybe think of tapping your fingers very lightly on the surface of a drum.

You can kind of think of those that very light vibration that you would get. It's something similar to that that allows it to sift apart. And then very cleverly, the gut can send the two components in opposite directions at the same time.

So if we go back and look at our diagram, at that point, we, we've separated out the fractions. The digestible fibre goes back in the opposite direction and ends up inside in this secum. So in each of the species inside in this secum, where the this population of bacteria live.

And the indigestible fibre continues on its one-way journey and out. If we look at the indigestible fibre, that then passes through and kind of out, and then that comes out as kind of the normal faecal droppings that we would see. So if you've looked after small furries you.

More than familiar with. And that's that indigestible fibre. So it's not really changed, it's just shifted apart from the digestible fibre.

So kind of what's its purpose? Well, earlier we mentioned the backup should be in constant motion, and that's really the job of the indigestible fibre. So that gut almost needs to be like a factory where we goods going in at the front end, so the animal is is constantly kind of nibbling and foraging and grazing.

And almost constantly goods out the other end, so we should be kind of having a a fairly regular dispatch of of droppings, and that indicates that gut is in constant motion and is in nice and healthy. So with the secum, so kind of our digestible fibre has gone back up into the scum, and the population of bacteria that's in there now starts to ferment that digestible fibre. That really is the key difference as to why they can live on the types of foods that they can and we couldn't.

And that bacteria over time will produce kind of byproducts of that fermentation, so they'll produce B vitamins, vitamin K, and then they'll also produce energy in the form of volatile fatty acids. And that's what I mean in terms of in certain ways we feed the bacteria and the bacteria are then feeding the animal. So you have all of this fermented material inside in this scum, and a couple of times a day, usually at quiet times, that secu will contract.

So if you think of almost squeezing a tube of toothpaste, kind of soft sticky material coming out, so this will contract and will send this sticky material, which we would call a seeker troph out, and then this then starts making its way down through the normal pathway in the gut. And it will pass through this area called the fussus coli, and at this point it's coated in a in some mucus, and that will kind of protect the outside of that sticky dropping or secotroph, and then it passes out from the bottom. Now in a rabbit, the rabbit will consume that sticky dropping or see atroph directly from their anus, so directly from their bottom.

So they will curl around, they'll kind of sit up and then almost do what looks like a little sit up so they'll kind of crunch down and they will consume that dropping directly. That sticky dropping then finds its way into the stomach. There's still bacteria continuing the fermentation process in that sticky dropping.

So after a period of time, the mucus coating on the outside of the sticky dropping is is dissolved by the acid in the stomach. The bacteria is killed, and then the nutrients that have been produced, are absorbed in the normal way through the stomach and the small intestines, those vitamins and and volatile fatty acids are absorbed. And then at the same time, the animal continues to be kind of further fibrous material, etc.

One of the key differences between rabbits versus guinea pigs and chinchillas is guineas and chins don't consume the sticky droppings directly from their bottom, they will consume them off the ground. Sometimes owners can be concerned when they see this happening, thinking, oh my gosh, something is wrong, they're consuming their droppings, am I not feeding them correctly, but in actual fact they've just kind of witnessed them consuming those sticky droppings, which is, which is a really, really normal process. So it's a very.

Very clever and nifty way of these animals being able to digest stuff that's really, really tough to extract nutrients from and still at the same time as a prey species remains small and nimble and fast. And so it's a really, really clever setup. Now we can run into issues when things go wrong in this situation, so if we find that the gut is slowing down, so we're not getting enough indigestible fibre in, we can tip into what's called gut stasis, that can be fatal within a very short period of time.

Similarly, if we're feeding foods where they're maybe getting too much sugar and starch, so for example, if they're being allowed to selectively feed a muesli style diet, you know, selective feeding is, is a natural behaviour in that thinking of the animal in the wild, that's out grazing and foraging all day, they're looking for young and succulent and tasty plants. Selective feeding in a domestic setting is a is a real issue, and we'll touch on that towards the end of the presentation. But if an animal is eating a lot of sugary and starchy materials, then it's thought that the balance of bacteria within that sum will change.

The profile of volatile fatty acids that produces changes, and actually the propensity for the animal to consume that sticky dropping then drops, and we run into all kinds of issues with uneaten sticky droppings and fly strike, which again we'll touch on in a couple of slides' time. So it's, it's quite a complex process and and a really, really important one, and you can see quite easily how that importance of getting the quantity and type of fibre in the diet right can have an enormous impact, positively or negatively on the overall health and welfare of of the animals. And this is what I was talking about in terms of what the droppings look like.

So we have the, the little round kind of bunch of grapes, as a sticky dropping from, from rabbits. So that's what a completely normal see troph will look like with a kind of sheen of, of mucus on the top. We then have the hard droppings from the rabbit, which should be kind of large.

Fibrous, and should be round if they're small, irregular, or really dark. That's maybe a sign that the gut isn't operating quite so well, and we might be about to go into stasis. So that's a really great indicator we have of kind of how well that gut is is working.

And again, I've got some pictures later on to show you. And then a contrast with guineas and chinchillas, that their droppings aren't round, the kind of the long shapes, and their sticky droppings look very similar to their normal droppings. But are just a little bit, a little bit wetter and and they know the difference, they're able to to tell the difference between the two.

So if we look at, you know, what does that mean in terms of that 85 to 90% of the diet should be good quality feeding hay, you know, first and foremost, I would start with with water. As with all species, it is the most important nutrient and the one that we can, we can do without for the shortest period of time. Interestingly, there has been research done, with rabbits showing that some rabbits prefer to drink from a bottle and others from a bowl, and that water intake can be increased by them drinking from a bowl.

So if we have to increase water intake for a reason, then. Offering it in a bowl can be useful. Similarly, if, if rabbits, or guineas or chins are going into a vet practise or, you know, a, a boarding house, it's really important that we communicate or they used to drinking from a bowl or a bottle, because if, for example, they're used to drinking from a bowl.

We only offer a bottle, we can end up with significantly reduced water intake, so that's really important. The bowls are great, as I said, they can increase water intake, but, you know, they do tend to be a little bit messy dropping their food and stepping in them, etc. So, you know, it's one to watch, kind of, you know, depending on, on each of them individually.

As we said, in terms of that hay, you know, we recommend a bundle of hay at least as big as they are every day, and what they don't eat, we should change out. So again, they will selectively feed with their hay as well, they'll pick out the bits they want, and if there's bits that they're not eating, you know, it's better to give them a continuous supply of good quality fresh hay and access to grazing appropriately. Where appropriate, a handful of, you know, dark leafy greens twice a day, would always be careful with chinchillas with greens, and they can be prone to bloat and so introduce anything new very, very slowly in very small quantities and and stick with what you know works.

But as I said, the dark leafy greens are great for all of them. A healthy treat. So again, you know, a treat should be a treat and it's a great opportunity to, you know, for, You know, if you're a pet owner to interact with your pet, there's a lot of treats on the market for our small furry pets, which are very sticky and sugar based and, we wouldn't recommend those.

So, you know, as I said, something healthy that still has a good fibre content to it, but has, you know, as is an element of treats. And then the nuggets should be, you know, a small measured amount on a daily basis. As we will touch on, hay is a natural commodity and it will vary nutritionally.

So if we almost think of our nuggets as our nutritional insurance policy, that's where we're getting all of our guaranteed vitamins and minerals and other additional nutrients that we will need. So we don't need to be feeding tonnes and tonnes of nuggets, we need to be feeding lots of good quality hay, and then as I said, supplementing with nuggets and then adding variety to to our enrichment. So if we then consider hay, as I said, we've spoken quite a lot about it, it's really important.

So, you know, we might think kind of well, you know, hay is hay, it's all kind of the same. It's grown in the field, it's dried, it is what it is, but actually there's an enormous amount of difference out there and actually by understanding it a little bit more, we can make sure that we're, you know, providing the best for these animals, ensuring that they're intaking the appropriate amounts and that we're kind of maintaining their health and welfare. So broadly speaking, and as I said, you know, we'll we'll touch on it across the next few, few slides, that we have bedding hay and feeding hay, and the two are not the same, and often on the market, if, if the product is labelled a little bit vaguely, or labelled as both bedding hay and feeding hay, generally speaking, and there can be exceptions, but generally speaking, that's probably more of a bedding hay.

So if we think of, hey, you know, the grass is grown in the field and we come to harvest it, we generally, you know, if we can, broadly speaking, harvest 3 times in a season. So first cut hay is the most premium hay, and if we think that at that point, the plant is at its youngest, so it will be a nice, you know, sweet, succulent plant, the type of plant that if they were out grazing in the wild, they would be quite happily eating, but it still has a great fibre content, and it's really palatable and it tends to be the greenest. So premium haze tend to be first cut haze, so anything that comes from first cut will tend to kind of go into those premium hazes.

So that will be cut and dried and processed. We'll continue to grow and then we'll take a 2nd cut hay. Now by the 2nd cut hay, the plant's a little bit older, fibre is increased, the natural sugars have dropped off a little bit, and so palatability is starting to drop, but it's still, you know, really good quality, really nutritious.

It's not quite as green as a first cut hay, but it's still a good quality hay and absolutely would sit in the category of being a feeding hay. And then by the time we would get to a 3rd cut hay, that really is only bedding hay. At that point, that plant is really quite mature, it's really fibrous, you know, it makes great bedding, it's really insulating, you know, it's soft in terms of a bedding, but it's not really palatable.

An animal might nibble or chew at it a little bit when it's put in as a as a bedding, but they're not really going to be eating it in the quantities that they need to be. So ideally we're looking for first cut hay. You know, good quality second, absolutely fine, and then a bedding hay is, is indeed that, it's, it's, it's just hay.

Because the provision of hay is about intake, it's not about just providing it to them, unless they're actually consuming it, they won't be getting all of the wonderful benefits there are of providing them that good quality hay. So anything we can do to increase that intake is absolutely fantastic. So in terms of the XL haze, we work, you know, closely with the farmers that produce it.

You know, they're they're they're grown here in in the UK and manufactured. Much of our hay is produced very locally to us, which is fantastic. And you know, we've we've worked with them for for a long time.

As I said, you know, cutting it at that first call, you know, means Yeah, it's it's most expensive, but it's the best time to cut it. And you know, we're, we're checking the nutrient levels, from a laboratory point of view, and then we, we specifically dry our hay. So, out on the market, there will be lots of other haze, lots of which you can find at significantly cheaper prices.

And these haze will be kind of traditionally produced, so they will be cut and they will be left to dry in the field. Now, you could be lucky and have a fantastic summer, that means there's really good drying, and actually that hay is pretty good quality, but you can be really unlucky and find that that hay has gotten rained on in the field and the quality is quite variable from one batch to another. What we aim for with our haze because we process them in a more controlled way, is that consistency across them.

So it is a natural commodity and there will always be some natural variation and, you know, unfortunately we can control the summers, which has a huge impact on it in terms of kind of colour, etc. But we can do what we can to make it more consistent. Benchmark the nutrient content of it, and we dust extract it.

So, in hay you have the plant stalk, and then you have the leaf. Once dried, the leaf part, becomes a little bit brittle, and that's what can shatter, through the process and that's what kind of creates the dust. So we do what we can to extract that dust to to reduce it to a minimum, which is better for the animal's respiratory systems and again a lot of, Other haze on the market kind of won't be dust extracted, so that's, that's a really kind of key point, from that point of view.

And as I said, you know, it's, it's everything we can do to preserve that palatability and nutrients, and we're able to, to trace each bag of hay back to which field that it came from, which is fantastic and and is kind of everything that we're about, in terms of knowing what we're doing. So if we consider kind of broadly what's on the menu, you know, we've spoken about hay quite a bit already, and I've kind of mentioned access to to kind of grazing and foraging, and you'll hear some other terms kind of mentioned . You know, across different, different forms, and it's kind of, well, what really are they?

So if we kind of just quickly run down through them, so we have grass, but there's many varieties, you know, kind of some natural, some hybrids, etc. So if we kind of think of our, you know, normal lawn that our pets might be out on, generally speaking, there's a bit of a mixed species going on there and they'll quite like that variety. If we think of things like silage and haulage, so these are things that really are used in, in for large animals, for horses, for cattle, for sheep.

It's a way of preserving grass from the summer season right the way through the year, so that we have forage that we can provide. In the depths of the winter when the grass isn't growing. But for our small pets, realistically, the, the moisture content is too high.

It will reduce the fibre content. It's not really palatable for them. It's also not practical, in a domestic setting.

So we would tend to kind of avoid kind of steering clear of both of those. On grass, it's also important to mention, so while access to grazing is fantastic for enrichment and exercise and for lots of lovely reasons, and obviously the fibre content of it, it's really important that we would never give lawnmower clippings. So if we were to take kind of a long bunch of grass and just cut it off at the base and provide it to them fresh like that, that's absolutely fine.

But if we think of lawnmower clippings, which are chopped quite short, that could cause a huge issue for them. So because it's, it's chopped quite short, it will ferment quite quickly in the gut, and we can end up with bloats and all kinds of problems for there. So that's always a little bit of a watch out when when we talk about the virtues of of feeding grass.

Hey, as we said, you know, we've spoken about quite a bit and and a little bit more coming up for you. But as I said, kind of, specifically, we're drying it to take control of it. You have dried grass, which again is kind of cut at that, you know, very young kind of grass stage and then dried again, you know, it can be a little bit dusty because it's mainly leaf, but can be really, really palatable, and if you're trying to encourage hay intake and fibre intake, it can be a really great, great source.

And then again, kind of, you know, a lot of our hays are are Timothy Hayes, which tend to be, you know, kind of really, really palatable, which is great. So as we said, you know, just touching on, the, the feeding hay versus the bedding hay, you know, so the other difference, so we've spoken about feeding hay and bedding hay, we've spoken about first cut and second cut and third cut, and, you know, I've just touched on Timothy. So the other distinction that you will see is you will generally have species specific haze, which often generally tend to be Timothy hay.

And then you will have meadow haze. Meadow hay doesn't have any really specific definition, it's just a broad brush term for a mixed species hay, rather than Timothy, which is, is just that specific species. Timothy hays tend to be better quality, as I said, it's a really good, palatable species with, you know, good nutrient profile.

But you can have a very good quality meadow hay as well, and some animals like the variation that's in there, so going back to that variety and. You know, seeking out a variety of plants in the natural environment. And again, it's about kind of finding what works for the animal and feeding that to them.

It's about intake, remember. But as I said, you know, there, there is those differences, and then you can also have inclusions in it. So for example, in our range, you know, we have some that have dandelion and marigold and and things that just anything that increases that intake.

So as I said, it's it's about having that variety of what works for the animal. So again, so kind of, you know, in, in my days when, when I was in practise, you know, I would. Be midway through my, my little speech about the importance of hay and how much hay we're feeding to my patients that's in front of me and, and, and, and their owner might stop me and say, you know, I completely get what you're saying, understand why it's really important, but you know, he, he just doesn't really seem to like hay.

And for me, a little alarm bell would always ring at that point because they really should like, hey, they almost have a physiological drive to consume fibre. So I think at that point, it's always really good to understand the situation a little bit more and as to why that animal might not be taking in as much fibre as they ought to be. So it may be pure and simple that we just need to feed a tastier, better quality hay, and that we we've maybe been providing them with a bedding.

Hay or a hay that they just don't really like. You know, if you think about hay and assessing it, you know, it should have a nice fresh greenish colour to it. When you open that bag and kind of smell it, it, it should smell like summer.

It should be a really pleasant smell. If it's not, if it's an unpleasant smell or it's, it's kind of sour or vinegary, or, you know, you kind of go, oh, that's not very nice. It, it smells really stale.

That's not appealing to you and, and it's really not going to be appealing to the animal. They're not going to eat it. So if you open that bag and kind of go, oh, that smells lovely.

I'm right back in the middle of a field in the summer, then, you know, there's a good chance the animal will eat that hay. So it is important to assess it. So it may be, as I said, just as simple as, making a change.

It can be about where we're putting it and increasing opportunities for them to eat. So try putting it in their kind of favourite resting place, you know. So we could put it in multiple places, make sure that hay isn't getting soil, so kind of, you know, having it adjacent to their toileting area can be helpful because they'll nibble on it often while they're going.

But we shouldn't have it that it can end up soiled and that's their only source of it. And again, having it in their resting areas, but others, again, as we said at the outset, these animals shouldn't be kept by themselves. So we always need to think of kind of from a resource point of view, you know, I ideally should have kind of, you know, a.

A provision per animal plus an extra. So at no point could a dominant one stop the kind of quieter one from gaining access to it. So if I've got two bunnies, ideally I kind of have three spots in which they they could eat their hay.

So we've kind of almost got one each and a spare. So at no point have we got guarding or or anything going on, and the same for all of their other resources really. Again, some bunnies like to pull the hay, you know, from a slightly elevated area, some prefer it lower, same for guineas and chins.

So it's about playing around and understanding the animal themselves is is really key, making it a little bit fun, you know, kind of, you know, I'm a little bit nerdy, so I find things like hay really interesting and really exciting, but, you know, kind of, many people don't, and that's OK. And again, you know, as a pet owner, you know, it's really interesting and exciting giving your pet a treat because, you know, they will come up to you and there's interaction and you feel like you're treating them. But actually, as we said, a huge portion of these animals' diet should be hay.

So how how do we make it a bit more interesting for the animal, but also for the owner themselves? And I'm a huge fan of stuff that doesn't have to cost a lot of money. You can be.

Creative at what you've, you know, people have around the house, whether it's, you know, a cardboard tube or a paper bag, or, you know, a little willow ball. All things you can make yourself and stuff them with hay. And even then, you know, in terms of kind of feeding treats, is actually, yeah, treats can be given by hand, but actually they're great to actually mix through the hay.

So make the animal work a small little bit harder for them. It creates Enrichment, gives them something to do. It encourages hay intake, you know, and it, it's, you know, it's fascinating kind of watching them kind of digging through the hay to kind of get it, as well.

So we really, really encourage people to do things like that. And then lastly, as we said, are we feeding too many nuggets? So, you know, the nuggets, as we said, are your nutritional insurance policy, they should be a small measured portion, and if we're providing too many of them, they would generally eat them in preference to the hay.

And it's quite plausible if we're giving them a really big bowl full like is on screen there that actually they'll they'll fill up and there's just there there's just no drive for them to then eat hay. And that's where we start getting kind of the knock on issues from the not consuming enough hay. So it's maybe kind of looking at kind of tapering back.

So we would maybe kind of say 20 to 25 grammes of nuggets per kilo a day. And so it it's not that much . Really important we don't make drastic changes to the diet, so kind of we don't kind of say, oh my gosh, we've been feeding too much and then drastically reduce it, gradually reduce it over a period of time, and hopefully we should start to see that hay intake starting to increase.

So, as I say, kind of make all all changes small and steady, and to give them a chance to adapt and give that bacterial population a chance to adapt to any changes, but as I said, kind of, you know, it is all about that hay intake. So what happens when we, we kind of get it wrong and you know, in terms of kind of describing the digestive system, you know, it sounds really complicated in lots of ways it is, it's a very complex system, and for anyone, you know, that is advising on the care of these animals or indeed caring for them, it can be a daunting prospect to kind of think. Gosh, I now understand all of that that's going on there.

How on earth do I meet all of those needs? And as we've just described, kind of, you know, nature has done a lot of the heavy lifting for us in the kind of access to haze and grasses with small supplements from us, really kind of deliver most of what's needed to be delivered, . But if we don't get it right, there are consequences to it.

So on the next few slides there's a couple of of photographs which which kind of bring it to life a little bit. If you're a little bit squeamish, you know, kind of maybe look away from the photos, but as I said, I think they do really help to kind of bring it to life. So from a dental point of view, so to switch gear a little bit from kind of talking about the digestive system, one of the similarities across all of these three species is they have what we call open rooted teeth, which means their teeth continue to grow for the duration of their life.

So unlike us, where we have our, our kind of our deciduous teeth or our baby teeth, which erupt and then we have for a short while, and then they fall out, we get our adult teeth, and once they've kind of reached full eruption, they then stop growing and that's our lot for our whole life. For these guys, they're almost in a catch 22. So because they eat a lot of fibrous foods, and that's quite abrasive material.

There's silicates in those materials which are kind of minerals which wear away at the teeth. It's kind of quite rough going on the teeth. Those teeth would wear down and if their teeth weren't growing continuously.

There wouldn't be much left in a comparably short period of time. So because they have a high fibre diet, their teeth grow continuously, but because their teeth grow continuously, they must have a high fibre diet. And if they don't, we run into problems really quite quickly.

So if we look at the diagrams first, the little graphic representations, and, and this is looking into the mouth of a rabbit, where their mouth is open, we can see the upper and lower cheek teeth, the lower cheek teeth here, uppers here, little tongue here, roof of the mouth here, and kind of gums down here. So from a cheek teeth point of view. These teeth are kind of meeting nice and squarely at rest, there's a little gap between the teeth, and all is well.

And in terms of their incisors, the lower incisors sit just behind the upper incisors, and they kind of, file themselves to a kind of fine chisel edge, and keep themselves in check, no issues. So if we don't have enough fibre in the diet, And the exception would be there are some breeds which are predisposed to developing dental disease, so like Netherland dwarfs as an example. But if we think of kind of the general population, if we don't have enough fibre in the diet, the teeth are not being worn down.

They continue to grow. That means at rest, there's no longer a gap between the teeth. They're now butted up against each other.

But the teeth are continuing to grow, and they're now compressive forces between the upper and lower cheek teeth. Not enough fibre, teeth continue to grow, and at this point, all that can happen is the teeth start to to kind of grow in a in a curved shape, so they kind of start to splay out and I've got some radiographs in a couple of slides to show you. What that then means is those teeth are no longer wearing down evenly and we start to get these sharp points or spurs developing and on the upper side, they'll develop on the side of the cheek and on the lower side, they'll develop on the side of the tongue, and they will lacerate the inside of the mouth.

And if you think how painful a small ulcer can be within your mouth, these lacerations are incredibly painful. That then changes the animal's behaviour. It's painful for them to eat the little bit of fibre they might be getting, so they completely stop.

So they will eat only maybe their nuggets or if they're being fed a muesli type diet. That then means there's less fibre going in and the problem just gets worse and worse. That then has a knock-on effect for the incisors, which are now not meeting correctly and are now becoming overgrown.

So overgrown incisors are often. And the kind of second stage, but outwardly visible sign that actually we've got something going on with the cheek teeth. And if we look at this photograph, so this is similarly looking into the mouth, and we've got the gum down at the bottom is this large pink piece.

Over here we've got the tongue, and then the white elements are the teeth, and you can see this very, very sharp spur and just how much that that would lacerate the side of the tongue. At this point, we only have the option of doing dentals, which must be done under general anaesthesia. We should not be doing dentals consciously.

And at that point, we will, file these teeth down and make them square, and have them align back as best we possibly can. But as I'll show you on the radiographs, down in the the routes, the changes have already happened, so we can't completely fix it, we can now only manage it. And so, generally speaking, that will mean.

Repeated general anaesthetics for the animal and dentals and cost for the owner and very sadly for lots of reasons, many owners are unable to continue on that path, and many of these animals, the end of the road is, is euthanasia for them really sadly. Guinea pig's teeth look slightly different, so they kind of they have a natural kind of tilt inwards. And what we see with them rather than specifically spurs developing is actually the teeth bridge over the tongue and the tongue gets trapped underneath and then it's really difficult for them to eat and drink, so equally.

Is miserable, but in a slightly different way, chins are a little bit more similar to rabbits in terms of what happens. So weepy eyes, wet chins, all of those things, the root cause of them is often dental disease, and because they're a prey species, they're designed to hide it until things have gotten significantly worse. So the next issue that we will typically see in practise is fly strike, which there's really no nice way of talking about fly strike.

It's a dreadful condition for everyone involved, the animal more than anyone. You know, it, it's terrible for the the vets and nurses who who have to then deal with it and for the owners who who have to come to terms with the situation. Same as with dental disease, better off prevented.

So we tend to see flies strike as an issue when the animal stops eating their sticky droppings, which, as we said earlier, is generally because they're not getting enough fibre in the diet. The sticky droppings are what they are. They're sticky and they smell really strongly.

They're not consuming them, they will tend to stick to the animal and all around their fur. Will then cause, you know, it will attract flies. Flies lay eggs, eggs hatch into maggots, and then maggots will start burrowing into the flesh.

So this photograph, is of the back end of a, of a bunny who's sadly is suffering from fly strike. So, you know, this is kind of down at the base of his back. You can see kind of where all the fur has, has sloughed off.

You can see open wounds down. You know, through significant layers of tissue, he has been cleaned up at this point, but again, you know, he's a reasonable road ahead of him, to get back. We can have animals that will go into septic shock, because of the, the toxins that are released by the maggots.

It's incredibly painful. I've had many patients that I've seen where they've they've burrowed directly into the abdomen, there's open wounds into the abdomen by the time we see them. And the first signs are often tiny little flecks in the first, so the eggs look like tiny little versions of grains of rice almost.

So again, we strongly encourage pet owners to, you know, check their pets on a daily basis twice a day in warm weather or if they're a pet that is at risk of not consuming their their scotropes, allow them access to exercise, feed them a fibrous diet, do everything we can to prevent being at this point, because it's very, very unpleasant when we get there. And the last one that we see is a kind of a a culmination is is poo dermatitis or kind of sore hocks. So this little bunny, over here has kind of small little sores that you can see.

So rabbits are a little bit different from guineas and chins in that they don't have pads on their feet. They're just covered with thick fur. So again, very early signs of podermatitis can be difficult to spot for an owner, which again we encourage an owner to, you know, regularly.

Check, move the fur and check for any signs. Early treatment is is definitely better. When it progresses to this stage where we've got open sores, you know, it's a very difficult, long, painful road ahead of that animal.

And for some animals, the kindest, treatment is euthanasia, really sadly. But a dermatitis comes along as a kind of a combination of, you know, the animal being obese and overweight, . You know, so there's kind of more weight and pressure than it should be going down through those hocks when they're at rest, you know, inadequate housing where there's either not enough space, so they're sat in the one place for long periods of time or there's insufficient bedding.

So kind of they're they're just sat on a hard surface. So it's it's again, it's a culmination of of much of of, of the issues that we see. And as I said, with all of these conditions, prevention is absolutely better than cure.

We never want to be at the point where we're seeing these pets coming in, and any of us that either. After these animals or advise pet owners or provide treatment. Any of us that have a point of contact, you know, there is huge opportunity to make a real difference, and I think there's a few things in life that you can make a real difference by encouraging a pet owner to feed their animal more hay.

You've no idea that the lifelong benefit that that animal can, have as a result of that. And it's really, it, it's why we do everything we do here at Burgess and with Excel, is it about the, the ability and the opportunity to make such a real difference, to prevent pain and suffering, to enrich a life, and to allow an animal to have a long and happy life, . That means it's a really positive experience for the animals themselves and for the owners and for everyone involved, so take every opportunity to explain and and to kind of spread that message.

Lastly, the next few slides that I'm gonna go through relate to some research that was done a number of years ago at this stage, but, you know, it's still really, really important and valid research. A couple of things to say at the outset. The research itself was specifically done for rabbits.

We have our just kind of believe that that the results can broadly be extrapolated . You know, if not directly then indirectly to to guinea pigs and chinchillas, and the reasons for that is is broadly everything we've spoken about physiologically, there are such similarities between them. So even though rabbits are lagomorphs and and chinchillas and guineas are are rodents and there are differences, .

It's, it's The similarities in terms of the open rooted teeth, the gut structure, the requirement for fibre are also similar. The propensity to selectively feed, we feel that that really, we, we, you can apply broadly the results. The other element of this is if we were to repeat this study, not only on rabbits, but, but to say, OK, let's do the same for for guinea pigs, there would be a licencing issue with it because we would be knowingly causing harm from the results that we saw in this study.

And I think that's a really powerful message. That to feed some of these, you know, products, in a trial, we, we would need a licence in order to do that study. I think it is a really powerful message.

So as I said, while the study does specifically relate to rabbits, I think for me, and there's learning for for guinea pigs and chinchillas within it as well. So, you know, the premise of the study was to look at the effects of diet on dental and digestive health and and and and behaviour as well. And there were 4 trial groups, there was a hey only group, which was kind of the control group, and there was a muesli only group.

Because again, from research, it was evident that that lots of animals were just being fed muesli type mixes. There was muesli and hay, because again, there was muesli on the market that, you know, did advise hay, on their package and it was important to have both. And then there was a nugget and hay group, as the kind of alternative kind of feeding method.

There wasn't a nugget only group because again, . There wasn't nuggets on the market that were being sold as complete foods and and implying that hay wasn't needed. And again, we knew from from research with owners that most owners weren't really just feeding nuggets by themselves.

And then data was collected over a 17 month period. So the first thing that we saw was selective feeding as expected, and we'll flick forward just to show you the the graph. So in terms of the selective feeding, the mueslion group and the muesli and Hay group consistently selectively fed, and they were consistent in what they selectively fed.

So, you know, there was very little of the extra dates and the grains left over in their bowls every day. They were kind of gobbling all of that up, so kind of anything sugary, starchy, anything like that, they were, they were taking in. The pellets that had the kind of bits and minerals in them and the stalks, the really fibrous materials they were leaving behind, so they were choosing the kind of high sugar, high starch elements and leaving the fibre element behind, and that was a consistent finding across both of the music groups throughout the study, and really kind of proved that premise of of them selectively feeding as a species.

The next element that was looked at was in terms of weight, and kind of what is the implication of weight. So again, if I flick forward to the graph. So, you know, this initial period was, you know, as young rabbits, so they were all the same breeds, same age as they were brought into the trial.

So this is kind of the age of kind of when they were just, you know, little babies, and just eating their standard foods. And then we have this transition period, a two week transition period off of what they were being fed onto their, their trial foods as per the group they've been allocated to. And then from 0 to 263 was kind of the collection of the data.

And what we see here is quite interesting. So the solid black line at the bottom is the hayon group. So they kind of get.

Gain weight at a bit of a steady rate, but kind of never really kind of fully grew into themselves. They weren't underweight, and as I'll show you in the next slide, their body condition score was was really good, but they were little and so they never quite reached that full growth potential, which goes back to what I was saying in terms of the nuggets being that kind of nutrition insurance policy to deliver all the nutrients. The top line, which is the dot and hash line was the muesli only group.

These guys gained weight really quickly and became overweight and obese really very quickly, and so we could see kind of an issue developing here, if they were to continue on that road. And then in the middle we've got the Nugget and Hay and muesli and Hay group, so strictly speaking from a weight point of view, there wasn't really statistically any difference between those two groups, but absolutely feeding a majority muesli or muesli on its own led to being overweight and obese really quite quickly. And we can see that in these photos.

So, you know, these little guys down here at the, the kind of the the HO at the 3 body condition score out of 5, you know, lovely condition, great cold condition. They were just little, they just never kind of quite reached their kind of full growth potential, you know, but we're lovely and healthy. We have the two hay groups here, so, Nuggets and hay and muesli and Hay had a body condition score of about 3 to 3.5, again, lovely.

And then these guys at 4.5 to 5 out of 5 were overweight and obese, and the knock-on effect. So again, if you kind of think, OK, well, what's the problem of them being overweight?

Ho a dermatitis is a risk of fly strike, you know, a bunny that's significantly overweight is going to struggle to consume their sticky droppings, and we know that increases their risk of of fly strike. So in terms of digestive health, and again, you know, from lots of what we've spoken about today, I think you can probably kind of hazard hazard guesses are kind of what the the results of this were. So we look to digestive health from two points of view, faecal output and sticky droppings.

So in terms of kind of the faecal output, which as I said earlier, is a really good indicator of how well the gut is working, it's a kind of non-invasive way of telling us how well that gut is functioning. So if we look at this graph over the full period of time, as everybody was getting used to the diets that they were on at the start of the study, there was a little bit of variation. But in the fullness of time, what we saw was the two muesli groups, so muesli on its own and .

Musli and hay, the two lines down the bottom, we had the lower weight of faecal droppings being produced, so they were kind of producing less faecal droppings, suggesting the gut was not performing optimally. And at the top we've got the hay only group and the nugget and hay group, and they were producing statistically significant heavier faecal pellets, so a healthier faecal palate, i.e.

A healthier gut. And it was the same with the diameter of the faecal palate, so kind of the hay only and the nugget and hay group were statistically different from the two muesli groups where those faecal pallets were smaller, as we said earlier, that's an indicator of the gut not working optimally and a risk of stasis and a total faecal output. So again, as you'd expect, the hay-only group kind of was was top of the charts, but the nugget and hay group was next, and then statistically different was the two muesli groups.

So overall there was less output, . And this is what it really looked like. So over here is a kind of hay only nugget and hay kind of group, so large round, looks really fibrous, nice and pale, super thick, that gut looks really healthy.

Over here, small, dark, irregular, that gut is starting to slow down. That animal is at risk of tipping into stasis. It won't take much to tip them in, and as I said earlier, stasis can become fatal really, really quickly.

There is a direct linear correlation between the kind of pellet sizes and the hay intake, and you know that that is really the more hay we can get them to eat. The bigger, the greater the pellet size, i.e., the greater that that gut is working.

So it's it's, it's, it's, it's pure and simple. So the more hay we can get in, the better. The other element from a digestive health point of view was where we looked at uneaten sticky droppings or yotrophs.

And again, if I skip forward to the graph, we can see here, so. Any uneaten secret troph was, was diligently collected from, the, the housing. So up here we have, as expected, the muesli only group which had the highest amount of uneaten sticky droppings.

Next was the muesli and hay, the feeding of hay alongside the muesli didn't stop, that being an issue. And then down at the very bottom, we have the hayon and the nuggets and hay group. So, you know, there was a really very, very few, if none, uneaten sticky droppings here.

So again, you know, a nice healthy state, but again, we go back up here, we kind of think, OK. So I've got a gut which is not operating optimally already. I'm now not eating sca troves.

I'm overweight. I'm at risk of fly strike, I'm at risk of, you know, obesity related issues, fatty liver disease, etc. And also podo dermatitis.

It's, it's really not a great position to be in. And then we move on, from a dental health point of view. So again, as we've kind of explained through in terms of what happens when we don't have enough fibre in the diet, you know, what we're seeing is even in the muesli group where hay was being provided, that hay intake was lower because they're selectively feeding the muesli, and that has a massive knock-on effect.

So as I described earlier in terms Of what we were seeing. So, as we said, when they're not getting enough fibre in the diet, the teeth get longer. So we're looking at a radiograph here where the the animal's nose is over towards the graph.

We've got the upper cheek teeth and the lower cheek teeth. We've got the roots down here in the jaw, and where we should have, you know, a nice, gap between these teeth at rest, you know, they're now kind of compressed up against each other. So, You know, we were seeing that again statistically significantly in the two muesli groups, the length of teeth was, was kind of longer and we're starting to see stepping and things like that which we know are the kind of clinical precursors to to kind of full, full dental disease.

. And then the other element that that we looked at was what's happening down in the roots. So there's there's a paper done by David Crosley which looks at how we can use the angles of the teeth within the jaw, as an indicator of development of dental disease. And that is what was used kind of within the study.

So you can see in the hayoni group is the control group, the angle is quite small in the gaps between the. Roots of the teeth down in the jaw. Because when you look at the music only group, those angles are a lot bigger.

So those teeth are starting to curve and splay. And, you know, these animals will go on to develop dental disease. And this is why, as I said earlier, any changes that happen are permanent, because they're bony changes down in the jawbone.

There's nothing we can do about it once it's happened. All we can do is manage it. And so, as I said, prevention is absolutely better than cure.

And as I said, through all of the results that we've seen here, you know, there was also, you know, out of this study, there was 5 peer reviewed published papers, you know, which from from one study is absolutely fantastic that covered everything that I've spoken about. There was also a behaviour. Paper which showed there was more negative behaviour seen in the two moosely groups and so those expressions of boredom and frustration, and you know, probably some discomfort as well, and that led to some of those more negative behaviours, unlike in the hay only and the nuggets and hay groups in contrast.

And as I said at the outset, you know, kind of while this study specifically looked at rabbits, for all of the reasons we've chatted about today, we feel the results can be extrapolated across to guineas and chins. And so kind of that risk of feeding mix or moosy type diets in these animals is there, you know, which ultimately kind of leads to kind of the, the underpinning of the five step feeding plan. And for us that's about taking lots of stuff, you know, we've spent, you know, just over an hour talking about stuff that, that, you know, ultimately in lots of ways it is really complex.

There's entire textbooks written about, you know, each of these things. And how do we take something that is really quite in depth and quite complex and make it. And make it understandable and ultimately mean that these pets get what they need, which is the right diet and and as I've said already, the the benefits are infinite of them being fed the right diet.

You know, the right diet doesn't prevent everything. They also need vaccinating, you know, as appropriate they should be. Neutered to prevent other issues, you know, there's, there's many other things that go into ensuring their health and welfare, but almost more than any other species.

For these three species, getting the diet right has such an impact on their overall health and welfare, and I would urge everyone, no matter what guise we're in, whether we're a pet owner ourselves, whether we're a retailer, selling to and advising pet owners, whether we're vets and vet nurses treating these animals and, You know, creating clinics and advice and newsletters, you know, or whether we're kind of, more removed, but anywhere where we can get a message to a pet owner, we should, because the benefits are, you know, what a privilege to be able to make such a difference to the health and welfare of animals. So as I said, it's, you know, to recap one last time is around feeding hay, good quality feeding hay being the cornerstone of the feeding plan, 85 to 94% of the diet. Think of the nuggets as as you.

Nutrition insurance policies and you know there's life stage nuggets there that can meet all the varied needs and add variety, nature snacks, think of things which are fibre based rather than, you know, purely sugar based and incorporate them in a way that enriches the environment and the life of the animal, you know, dark leafy greens, some, you know, fresh materials in the diet as appropriate. Being that little bit careful for for our chinchillas. For our guinea pigs, you know, 11 thing to just think about is their vitamin C requirement.

They cannot synthesise vitamin C themselves, so feeding a guinea nugget with protected vitamin C is really important to make sure we meet that need. And similarly with the dark leafy greens that can help. And then of course, fresh water in a means that that suits the animal.

So thank you so much for joining us today for that presentation. I hope there is more than a couple of things that you can take away and have found useful and as I said, the reason that all of us are here, is to improve the lives of animals and and their owners in turn. And so at Burgess we're always here to help and support where we can, you know, follow us on social media.

We have a consumer care function, where we can provide help and advice, if you do need to get in touch with us, and it's our whole reason for being, is, is to help and support, animals and their owners. So, so please lean on us as needed, and thank you so much for listening.