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Look how skinny Julie is!

bunnytoes

Warren Veteran
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These pictures were taken today. She has lost 1 1/2 pounds in 3 weeks. Julie was kinda pudgy before. She looks so thin to me. Poor baby.

She has another appointment with a differnt vet on Saturday. The other vet said she had to see a diagnostic specialist because she has a high struvite crystal count.
The one that she has the appointment with said they will do a complete exam and work up but rabbits don't get struvite crystals. I am so confused now.

She started loosing weight when the vet told me to cut out the pellets. She no longer has the calcium crystals and is not peeing on herself anymore. The vet still told me to not give her the pellets because of the struvite crystals. She said give her unlimited timothy hay and unlimited greens. Julie acts like she is starving. Look at the pictures. I think that she is. I can't really give her unlimited greens because Julie will never stop eating. I did give her a lot more today as she was acting crazy hungry. Poor girl got yucky dirty bum from it. I threw in the towel and said the heck with it. I gave her a tablspoon of pellets to calm her and it worked. Other than acting really hungry she is very active and demanding of love and fuss. She is sleeping a lot less though. She is up most of the day. She use to play all night and sleep most of the day. Now she seems to play and eat all day and all night.
 
She looks quite healthy size wise to me but it's hard to tell when they are all fluffy without getting your hands on :) Ask your vet next time you visit and he should be able to give you an ideal weight for her (breed weights are useless) and then you can use it to monitor her diet.

Rabbits are designed to spend a lot of time eating. Lots of rabbit spend too much time resting because their food is too convenient. It sounds like the new diet is making a positive lifestyle change too!

She'll need to eat quite a few extra greens to compensate for the pellets as pellets are much more concentrated so don't worry if she eats and eats. There is no magical ingredient in pellets though, it's the same raw ingredients you can feed fresh just all mushed up and dried out :) It will take awhile for her tummy to get used to the diet change so you'll probably find the poop issue will sort its self out if you introduce new types of greens gradually and build up the quantity gradually too.

I know it's a bit of a worry doing something so drastic but pet bunnies are really not that different to wild buns and they cope just fine without pellets :)

If she isn't managing to maintain her weight then it might be better to go for a few oats or similar rather than pellets. That might have less calcium (would need to check).
 
Thanks Tamsin. Julie has always be very obsessed with food. She is that kind of bunny. I swear she will eat as much as I give her no mater how much I give her. I do hide food all around the kitchen for her to find. I have been doing this for a long time and she seems to love it. I worry though about how starving she acts. She sits in front of the refrigerator staring at it and will climb in when it is opened. She also is eating her toys down to nothing. This morning she ate a chunk of my slippers while I was wearing them. She is a lot more hungry than she ever was and she was always hungry. She is eating her hay good.
 
Pellets are less than 10% moisture (water) and fresh foods more like 80-90%. So weight for weight she'd need to eat several times the amount of fresh foods as pellets to get the same amount of non water component. If you think how small and light herbs, for example, crush down to when they are dried compared to the same amount fresh.

So in a very rough example, if you had a fresh leaf that weighed 100g but was 80% water, that means dried it would weigh 20g. Or the other way around, if you had 20g of dried food, she'd have to eat 100g of fresh (5x the amount) to get the same food value.

It looks like a lot more just because its less condensed :)

Have you noticed her drinking less where she's getting more water in her food?
 
Pellets are less than 10% moisture (water) and fresh foods more like 80-90%. So weight for weight she'd need to eat several times the amount of fresh foods as pellets to get the same amount of non water component. If you think how small and light herbs, for example, crush down to when they are dried compared to the same amount fresh.

So in a very rough example, if you had a fresh leaf that weighed 100g but was 80% water, that means dried it would weigh 20g. Or the other way around, if you had 20g of dried food, she'd have to eat 100g of fresh (5x the amount) to get the same food value.

It looks like a lot more just because its less condensed :)

Have you noticed her drinking less where she's getting more water in her food?

No, I haven't noticed her drinking less. She drinks a lot and pees a lot. That is one of the concerns about her but now that you mentioned it she is peeing more.
How many cups of chopped greens or handfuls of whole greens a day for a medium sized rabbit would be about right? The vet said unlimited but as much as I give her she will eat. I am afraid that she will never stop.
 
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:wave: Hi
She's definately slimmer but not worryingly so from the photos. But as Tamsin says, only real way to check and monitor is hands-on - your vet should be able to show you how to assess her body condition (weight doesnt mean a lot on its own).

I'd also check, but a daily porridge meal might be good - give her some energy source which is slow release so she'll act less hungry all the time. my bun did this when we took her off pellets years ago - she tried to eat everything because she was so hungry,whereas before she wasnt at all destructive.

It is probably a lot of food, but if you imagine a handful of pellets once a day (what i give my buns) x 5-7 in veg to make up the dry matter, its quite a lot. Measure in handfuls as thats probably easier, and space it out in several meals if possible. As long as she is eating hay all day it wont do her stomach any harm.

maybe i missed it in the other thread - was the lack of pellets because of calcium and the crytals?
 
:wave: Hi
She's definately slimmer but not worryingly so from the photos. But as Tamsin says, only real way to check and monitor is hands-on - your vet should be able to show you how to assess her body condition (weight doesnt mean a lot on its own).

I'd also check, but a daily porridge meal might be good - give her some energy source which is slow release so she'll act less hungry all the time. my bun did this when we took her off pellets years ago - she tried to eat everything because she was so hungry,whereas before she wasnt at all destructive.

It is probably a lot of food, but if you imagine a handful of pellets once a day (what i give my buns) x 5-7 in veg to make up the dry matter, its quite a lot. Measure in handfuls as thats probably easier, and space it out in several meals if possible. As long as she is eating hay all day it wont do her stomach any harm.

maybe i missed it in the other thread - was the lack of pellets because of calcium and the crytals?

Yes, the lack of pellets is because of the calcium and crystals. The porridge meal is that what Americans call oat meal? Quaker Oats? I use to give her a little oats meal sprinkled in her hay as a treat and fun to hunt for but I gave it dry. I read on here that porridge oats dry could swell in the stomach. If it is oatmeal that you are suggesting should I make the oatmeal with water?
 
Julie is looking great! I guess the change is a bit difficult to get used to though for you.
Good news on the reduction in crystals in her urine. I haven't been RUing so much recently but seem to remember that Julie's vet was querying a metabolic disorder? Her voracious appetite would seem to be even more extreme than your average Californian bun so there must be something behind it rather than just breed predisposition.
Porridge oats aka rolled oats are the same as oatmeal so better for buns to make it up with some water.
Really hope you get to the bottom of all this, although the improvements you have seen from the diet change much be encouraging - even if Julie is not too impressed!
 
Julie is looking great! I guess the change is a bit difficult to get used to though for you.
Good news on the reduction in crystals in her urine. I haven't been RUing so much recently but seem to remember that Julie's vet was querying a metabolic disorder? Her voracious appetite would seem to be even more extreme than your average Californian bun so there must be something behind it rather than just breed predisposition.
Porridge oats aka rolled oats are the same as oatmeal so better for buns to make it up with some water.
Really hope you get to the bottom of all this, although the improvements you have seen from the diet change much be encouraging - even if Julie is not too impressed!

:wave:How are parsley and Gilbert doing? I would love to see new pictures of them.
 
:wave: They are great thanks.
I have just spent an hour or so doing a full clean up of their house. So they were a bit peeved with me :lol:
Recently they have learnt to use the ramp to their mezzanine, its taken about 6 months! Parsley's new slim body is more agile so she was the first to learn then Gil didn't want to miss out so got up the courage.
Gilbert has been gradually coming out of his shell with me after many months. He & Parsley are feisty with each other but he has always been quite shy with humans so I'm enjoying more positive time with him.
As for photos - I am rubbish :lol: always miss things by not having camera handy, or flat batteries etc. I have a friend who is a great photographer, she always takes great pics for me of my foster animals so I will get her round for a bun photo session soon I promise :).
 
i hope julie is starting to improve for you. my himi ralph was very thin as he had serious pasturella. here's a pic of how thin he was so you can compare your julie with.
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