Set up the first-month log before the food changes
Start the log on arrival day, before you are tempted to improve anything. Across the top, record what the rescue or previous home was feeding — the hay type, the pellet brand type and daily amount as described to you, and any vegetables already familiar to her — because that starting diet is the baseline the whole month is measured against. Then give each day three short lines: food in, droppings out, tray behaviour. A newly adopted rabbit may scatter droppings deliberately in the first days to mark a new territory, and writing that down stops you mistaking normal settling-in behaviour for a litter-training failure later. Photograph the tray once in the first week, at its usual clean-out time, so you have a picture of what her normal output volume looks like.
Read the litter tray like a daily report
A rabbit's droppings are the clearest daily health signal you own, so describe them in the log rather than just glancing. You are looking for droppings that are plentiful, round, dry, and roughly pea-sized, plus the softer, shiny cecotropes that a healthy rabbit usually eats directly and you should rarely see. Note quantity as honestly as you can — tray full, half, scant — and note size, because droppings that gradually shrink are one of the earliest signs a rabbit is eating less fibre than she needs. Record tray habits too: whether she uses the tray for both droppings and urine, whether output lands beside it, and whether she is eating hay while sitting in the tray, which is exactly the pattern you want to encourage.
Change the diet in dated steps
The rule that makes the log useful is one change at a time, each with a date. Keep her entirely on the familiar food for the first several days while she settles. If you plan to move her onto a different pellet, mix increasing proportions across at least a week and write each step down; introduce each new vegetable singly, in a small piece, with two or three days before the next new one. When the tray then shows soft droppings or uneaten cecotropes the morning after a change, the log tells you which step to reverse instead of leaving you guessing among five new foods. Note hay separately throughout: a rabbit who is filling up on pellets and neglecting hay needs the pellet amount eased down gradually, and the tray will show the improvement as droppings grow bigger and more plentiful.
When the log says call the vet
Write your thresholds into the front of the log so a worrying morning is a decision already made. A rabbit who stops eating, or whose droppings stop or dwindle to a few tiny pieces, needs a vet the same day — a rabbit's gut must keep moving, and appetite loss is never a wait-until-Monday problem. Soft, smeared droppings after a new vegetable usually mean stepping back one dated change and watching the tray for a day, but the same picture with a hunched, quiet rabbit is a vet call, not a diet note. Bring the log to the first vet check-up: filed in her KinsLe Pet Passport, four dated weeks of intake and output give the vet a settling-in history no memory could reproduce.