Making a Substitute for Pellets
I should add this to Melvin's thread too, but he was the reason for the pellet substitute experiment, with his suspected interstitial cystitis. The vet recommended taking him off all vegetables to see if that helped. I wanted to try getting him off dry pellets first. it seemed to help, but didn't stop the pain altogether. Then I stopped pepper and cut back the amount on carrot. He still had pain. Then I tried cutting out all the fibrous white portions on the lettuce, giving him only the tender green portions of the leaf. This seems to do the trick, about 1 to 3/4 of a baby carrot and tender green lettuce in addition to his hay and the soaked hay is all he gets. What a relief. It was getting scary and stressful hearing him in pain, but I think we've fixed things for now.