Specialised Animal Nutrition

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Specialised Animal Nutrition

Specialised Animal Nutrition (SAN) is the Australian distributor of Oxbow Animal Health

29/09/2025

A lovely review from a customer 🤎

24/09/2025

Poppy only likes to have treats on days ending with Y.

📸: (Instagram)

19/09/2025

Picky eater? 🌱🌿

As many rabbit owners know, some bunnies are pickier than others and you may need to get creative to encourage hay intake! Here are some top tips:

1. Feed New Varieties Of Hay
Offering new types of hay opens your pet up to a variety of new tastes and textures to make mealtime exciting. Oxbow currently offers a variety of grass hays to cater to all kinds of pets’ different taste and texture preferences. For example, our Oat Hay is crunchier than others for a fun texture change!

2. Mix Hays To Create A Custom Blend Just For Your Pet
Your hay mix can be as simple as combining two hays together, or can be more involved by including an appropriate serving of your rabbit’s favourite leafy green or treat to make a “hay salad.” For a convenient mix, Oxbow offers Hay Blends, which is a mix of Western Timothy Hay and Orchard Grass Hay.

3. Add Species-Appropriate Flowers & Herbs For Excitement
Adding some safe floral elements to hay can make a regular meal more enticing for your rabbit! For convenience, Oxbow’s Botanical Hay comes loaded with lemon balm, chamomile, lavender, and clover for a one-of-a-kind taste experience. As always, make sure to ask your vet what flowers are appropriate for your rabbit specifically.

4. Encourage Your Pets To Play With Their Food
Another way to increase hay consumption in your picky rabbit is to make it fun! Try stuffing hay into your rabbit’s favourite natural chew to make a fun and challenging puzzle. Play hide and seek by hiding your rabbit’s favourite food in their habitat.

5. Always Transition From Bag To Bag
Make sure the hay and pellets you regularly feed your rabbit are transitioned properly from bag to bag, even if the type of hay and pellets are the same. Your rabbit can recognise even the most subtle, natural differences in scent or taste from one bag of food or hay to another. When not transitioned properly, our pickier furry friends often are not keen on these differences, and they sometimes reject their food or hay even if it’s a variety they have always loved.

If your rabbit has suddenly stopped eating or is showing signs of sickness they need to be seen by an exotics veterinarian as soon as possible. 👩‍⚕️

17/09/2025

Golden hour ✨

05/09/2025

We already knew that rats make great pets, but did you know that they can also save lives? The HeroRATs of Apopo, a non-profit organisation based in Tanzania, are trained to detect landmines and also the presence of tuberculosis in human samples.

Apopo trains African giant pouched rats. These rats are found throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa and weight between 1 and 1.3kg.

According to Apopo, these rats are ideally suited to detection work as:

- They have an incredible sense of smell
- They're highly intelligent and easy to train
- They're too light to trigger landmines
- They're indigenous to Tanzania where they train them
- They adapt well to new trainers, ensuring consistent care
- They're easy to nurture and look after
- They live around 8 years, allowing the team to enjoy many years with them

In 2020, HeroRAT “Magawa” was the first rat to win Britain’s highest honour for animal bravery, an award that has only ever been given to dogs. In 2020, Magawa had discovered 39 landmines and 28 items of unexploded ordinance in Cambodia. and had helped clear 141,000 square metres of land. He was given a tiny rat-sized gold medal in recognition of his award. He continued with his important work,until he retired in 2021, and he passed peacefully from old age in 2022.

To find out more about the wonderful work of Apopo, please visit their page APOPO 🏅

03/09/2025

We usually share Australian pets on this page but we just couldn't resist this beautiful photo of Spud the Prairie Dog, enjoying his Simple Rewards treat over in the States. You can follow Spud and his sibling Sandy on their Instagram account 🤎

📸:

29/08/2025

Bumblefoot in Guinea Pigs 🐹🐾

Bumblefoot, or ‘pododermatitis’, is a painful condition affected the guinea pig’s foot pad. It is often caused by inappropriate living conditions, such as rough bedding or wire cages.

Signs include:
❗️Wounds or scabs on the foot pad
❗️Swollen, irritated, red foot pads
❗️In more severe cases, the entire foot or limb can appear swollen
❗️Limping, or decreased or limited mobility
❗️A reluctance to move around, run, or play
❗️Depressed mood or lower levels of activity and excitement
❗️Unexplained weight loss (due to pain and reluctance to get food)
❗️Unexplained weight gain (due to reluctance to exercise
❗️Symptoms of GI stasis – if your pet is exhibiting signs of GI stasis this is an emergency. Please seek veterinary care immediately.

Bumblefoot must be assessed and treated by you guinea pig’s vet. Appropriate antibiotics and pain relief may be needed, as well case-specific additional treatments. Identifying the cause will be important to prevent it from happening again. If you suspect your guinea pig has bumblefoot, reach out to your vet without delay!

27/08/2025

"Did you bring snacks? OK, come in."

Never forget your Oxbow Simple Rewards treats, or Peanut might not let you in 🤎

Let us know in the comments which Simple Rewards treat is your pet's favourite!

22/08/2025

Should you be bathing your rabbit or guinea pig?

Rabbits, guinea pigs, and other small mammals are very good at keeping themselves clean—you have likely seen your small pet washing their face with their paws. Because they are good at keeping themselves clean, they rarely, if ever, need a bath!

Bathing is generally not recommended for small animals, as their self-cleaning habits tend to take care of their skin and coat health without assistance. When we start bathing small animals, we introduce new chemical agents that can disrupt the skin’s natural environment of oils. Having a water bath can in fact lead to skin disease.

There are a few exceptions to this no-bath rule in rabbits and guinea pigs:

🛁Cleaning your guinea pig’s grease gland, which generally is only needed once a year, sometimes even less frequently. If you need to bathe your guinea pig in this instance, limit soap and water only to the places that require it.

🛁Cleaning your pet’s coat if they are covered with urine or loose stools. Remember that small pets are good at keeping themselves clean—when they fail to do so, it means something is not quite right and you should seek veterinary advice.

In both of these exceptions to the no-bath rule, make sure that all soap is removed from your pet’s coat and that your pet is at least towel-dried afterwards to keep them from getting too cold. Some pet parents use hair dryers, but we recommend against this. The air may be too hot and harm your pet, and hot air may increase skin dryness. In some cases, the extremely hot air can even lead to heat stroke.

We recommend giving your pet an additional towel to burrow into after you towel dry them and monitor them to make sure they aren’t chewing on or eating pieces of the fabric. A small heating pad specifically designed for small mammals can also be added to a corner of their habitat to help keep your pet warm as their fur dries. If you use a heating pad, make sure there is enough space that your pet can step on and off the pad completely so they can regulate their body temperature effectively.

If you have any questions about your pet’s skin health, schedule a consultation with your vet!

20/08/2025

Mr Papaya putting his best foot forward 🐰

📸: (Instagram)

15/08/2025

Hay Stacks 🌿

Have you tried our Hay Stacks?

Using special compression technology, we transform 100% all-natural, hand-sorted Oxbow Western Timothy hay into compact, convenient-to-feed portions which produce 80% less airborne dust than loose hay when fed according to instructions.

Feed Harvest Stacks as a primary hay source or supplement with loose hay to encourage enrichment.

Harvest Stacks also make a great feeding option when traveling or anytime storage space is limited.

Available in a 1kg pack containing 6 individual portions.

Flavours:
❤️ Western Timothy
🧡Western Timothy with Carrot
💚Western Timothy with Chamomile

Check out our website for more info!

13/08/2025

Whisker Wednesday! 🐭🐭

Address

15 Jay Gee Court
Upper Nerang, QLD
4211

Website

http://www.oxbowaustralia.com/

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A Bit About Us.

Specialised Animal Nutrition is the Australian distributor of Oxbow Animal Health (USA) and Baraka Station products (Australia). The company was founded by Jennifer O’Hara in 2005, who had a vision of not only improving the welfare of rabbits, guinea pigs and herbivorous wildlife in Australia, by importing, growing and selling super premium products, but also promoting the herbivore nutrition knowledge base. SAN is a business that supplies accurate, powerful educational material and creates access to premium nutritional products and thereby enabling a high level of care for busy, modern families.

Oxbow’s premium life-staged feeds and supportive care products for small animals are used and recommended by top exotic animal veterinarians worldwide. The Oxbow product line is built around a range of premium quality grass hays, 25% fibre life-staged pelleted diets, and Critical Care for Herbivores® - the world standard, grass hay based, syringe feeding formula for convalescent herbivores and wildlife including water fowl, alpaca, herbivorous reptiles, possums, macropods, koalas and wombats.

Baraka Station (nestled in the Gold Coast Hinterland), proudly supplies pure Australia grown leaf and stem products for rabbits and guinea pigs. The seasonally changing, often organic range includes Wood Chews, Dried Herb Blends and other completely natural, enriching products.