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Some questions about my bun :)

Persie

Warren Scout
Hi all :wave:

I'm a new bunny owner to Persie who is 7 weeks old today. It is a netherland dwarf/lionhead cross. I had a few questions I wondered if anyone could help me out with :)

We give Persie some Romaine lettuce and carrots during the week which he absolutely loved however it seemed to upset his tummy so I stopped immediately. At what age is it safe to introduce some veggies?

At what age should I bring Persie to a vet for a check up? I would like to find out the sex and also make sure Persie is well & healthy :)

Also with Persie being a netherland dwarf/lionhead mix, what size should it grow too? I imagine it will stay quite small even when fully grown.

Thank you for reading :love:
 
He's slightly too young to be away from his mum so I wouldn't give him any new foods for a month or two yet.

We suspect that Nutmeg is a nethie/lionhead mix and she is 1.2-1.3 kg if that's any help. If you click on her name in my signature you'll see a load of pics of her which might give you more of an idea of size.
 
He's slightly too young to be away from his mum so I wouldn't give him any new foods for a month or two yet.

We suspect that Nutmeg is a nethie/lionhead mix and she is 1.2-1.3 kg if that's any help. If you click on her name in my signature you'll see a load of pics of her which might give you more of an idea of size.

Thank you for the help Elena, I will have a look at Nutmeg now :D

I know Persie is so young to be away from his Mum but unfortunately his Mum got pregnant again right after Persie was born so when the new buns arrived Persie and his 3 siblings had to be moved away from the Mum :( Persie is doing so well eating & drinking on his own - bless him :love:
 
Wow Nutmeg is ADORABLE and very like Persie - I imagine that will be exactly what he/she looks like when an adult :love:
 
As Elena has said, he is away from his Mum at a slightly younger age than is advised...although saying that I don't know if the rules are different in NI because i've seen several people bring home puppies and kittens at 6 weeks old?! Here in England the rule is 8 weeks old at the minimum but depending on the animal it can be later, more like 10 weeks. Because he's so young, and like you have already said his tummy gets a bit upset, I'd steer clear of the veggies until he's about 4 months old.

I'd probably take Persie to the vets within the next couple of weeks, to get him vaccinated and a general health check. Hopefully he does turn out to be a boy as well!

I've not got a dwarf/lionhead, but I have got a netherland dwarf and she is 1.3kg. I did a thread not too long ago, titled 'my lovely lot' with some photos on if you're interested (click on my username, view profile and then recent started threads) to see her size, she's called Dee and is the black one :)

Would love to see some photos!
 
do you know if he was eating any veg at his old home? Sometimes baby buns will have a nibble on their mums vegetables, if he hasn't eaten any I think they recommend waiting until 8-12 weeks. Carrots are very high in sugar, they should be treated as rabbit sweeties which as well as not being used to the veg could be the cause of his upset tummy. :)

I have a netherland dwarf who weighs 1.5kg and a lionhead or lionheadX who weighs 2kg. It depends on the breeding really, Sebastian was a pet shop rabbit so he isn't pedigree and as such is very big for a nethie where as a pure show bred nethie will be much smaller
 
We had Nibbles and Buttons at 6 weeks cos their mum started to get very anxious and aggressive towards the babies :shock: I didn't start introducing new food to them til they were 12 weeks old. The person who I got them from had fed them apple so I continued with that as a treat.

Our Jasper is a nethie and I'd estimate he weighs 1.2 - 1.5kg. Nibbles and Buttons are lionhead-lop crosses, Buttons weighs about 2.8kg and Nibbles about 2.4kg normally. I think lionheads tend to be on the smaller side but every bunny seems to be different. Nibbles and Buttons came from the same litter but are completely different in how they look (Buttons is more lop whereas Nibbles seems to be a lot fluffier) and their weight is different too :thumb:
 
Some good advice here I would also steer clear of lettuce in the future as this will upset his/her tummy dark green veggies are much better, carrot should also be only fed as an occasional treat
 
He is too young to be away from his mum.

Just feed him the pellets/muesli he was on at the breeders/pet shop and unlimited hay at the moment - try to ensure that he eats plenty of hay.

You shouldn't introduce any greens until at least 12 weeks or older, and then you need to start with things that are easy on the gut, which carrot and lettuce are definitely not. Things like grass, dandelions, plantain, bramble leaves and herbs are good things to start with. High sugar foods or lettuces are harder for the gut to handle.
 
The same rule applies here, they really shouldn't be taken from their Mums as young as 6 weeks, in fact we got Persie at 6 weeks old and at that point Persie had been away from his Mum for I'm not sure how long - but is doing great, he/she loves hay and a small amount of Excel Junior and Dwarf*nuggets. I couldn't get Persie to drink from the bottle so I was worried he wasn't getting enough water and put a bowl in which he drinks from :)

When we went to collect him from the girl selling him he had been eating carrot so we thought he would be ok and give him some ourselves but I kept an eye on his poo and it started to get slightly moist and clump together so we stopped with the veg until he's older (he's not pleased with us though) :lol:

Thanks for the tip about the vet, we will definitely get him to the vet soon and get him checked out :)
 
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What a gorgeous baby! :love: so tiny and fluffy! :love:

Shame about the age of being taken away from Mum, but you seem to be tending to his/her every need! :)
 
There was a study in meat rabbits that concluded that rabbits taken from their mum early would have slower growth at first and their guts did not fare as well as rabbits kept with mum longer. So I would be extra careful and keep him on a plain diet for a good while, longer than you would with a normal rabbit that has been bred responsibly. I wouldn't introduce any fresh food until 16 weeks at the earliest and then only if his gut health is good.

I would also report the breeder to the whatever the equivalent is of the RSPCA over there - the breeder is being cruel by separating them from their mothers too early. Rabbits separated from their mothers too early are also at higher risk of gut problems and death. Make sure, if the bunny seems to like your company, to make sure you spend hours every day with her, as rabbits are a very social species and she will be missing her litter. Ideally they need the company of their own kind but as she doesn't have a friend you will have to step in :)
 
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Oh yeah we know that but for the time being while he's a baby the cage is perfect for him. Our bun is like a baby to us, he will be spoilt rotten and have the best of everything no doubt :D question about cages now actually while its been mentioned, is the Ferplast 140 the biggest cage you can get in the UK? He gets plenty of time to run around our bunny-proof kitchen everyday, at first he stuck to the one corner of the room but today for the first time he was running the full length of it, doing hops etc - such a character, he had me in stitches :lol:
 
I don't think any of the 'indoor' rabbit cages are big enough to keep a rabbit shut in. One of these large cages with a playpen permenantly attached would be ok, as long as the rabbit never got shut into the cage.
 
Oh yeah we know that but for the time being while he's a baby the cage is perfect for him. Our bun is like a baby to us, he will be spoilt rotten and have the best of everything no doubt :D question about cages now actually while its been mentioned, is the Ferplast 140 the biggest cage you can get in the UK? He gets plenty of time to run around our bunny-proof kitchen everyday, at first he stuck to the one corner of the room but today for the first time he was running the full length of it, doing hops etc - such a character, he had me in stitches :lol:

I *think* you can get one that is 150cm long, but there aren't any of those type of cages that meet the minimum welfare guidelines. These are the guidelines, they are for outdoor rabbits but indoor ones need the same amount of space: http://www.rabbitwelfare.co.uk/ahutchisnotenough.htm

People tend to use big 4ftx3ft dog crates attached to a pen, just a big pen alone, or the bunny just lives free-range in that room 24/7.

There are lots of examples on the indoor housing sticky thread.
 
After reading that article, I don't think many people stick to those guild-lines, judging by the sizes of hutches sold in pet shops which are shockingly small :shock:

Our bun will probably remain an indoor rabbit, I don't think I would feel content leaving him outside all the time but I will definitely have to look into this. Before buying the cage I researched about housing for dwarf rabbits I came across many sites which give the measurements of 18X24x14 cage or larger to which our cage is bigger so being a new bunny owner I thought this was ok for him but yeah, I already feel when he's bigger I would not be happy with him in this cage.

Our bun has been sleeping for ages now, think his big run around the kitchen today has wore him right out :lol:
 
After reading that article, I don't think many people stick to those guild-lines, judging by the sizes of hutches sold in pet shops which are shockingly small :shock:

Our bun will probably remain an indoor rabbit, I don't think I would feel content leaving him outside all the time but I will definitely have to look into this. Before buying the cage I researched about housing for dwarf rabbits I came across many sites which give the measurements of 18X24x14 cage or larger to which our cage is bigger so being a new bunny owner I thought this was ok for him but yeah, I already feel when he's bigger I would not be happy with him in this cage.

Our bun has been sleeping for ages now, think his big run around the kitchen today has wore him right out :lol:

Some people don't stick to the guidelines, but in not sticking to them they are ignoring the RSPCA five freedoms. Some of the hutches/cages sold can actually result in health problems from a lack of exercise too, remember wild rabbits can run 5 miles in a day, and domestic rabbits are not that different.

I have a feeling that those measurements that you found are what is used for factory-farmed meat rabbits, which is definitely not good by welfare standards. In America the housing sizes are much smaller and should be disregarded, so be careful where you look for info. The link I posted is the official guidelines. The RSPCA sets out the same minimum hutch sizes.

The thing is, whilst dwarf rabbits are small, they tend to be faster and more active than bigger rabbits, meaning that they need the same size accommodation as a normal sized bun. This doesn't mean indoor buns need to be put outside, it just means that they need to be given space inside the house. The size of accommodation must not be smaller than 6x2ft, however if you are going to give plenty of time out of the cage it does not have to be the full 6x2ft hutch attached to a 8x4ft run. Instead it depends on how much time, realistically, they get out. 18 hours or more and just the 6x2ft will be fine, I would say. Anything less than 18 hours free-ranging and you need bigger than 6x2ft, as they will be in there for a long time each day. It is also worth considering where the rabbit will be at their peak awake-times, at dawn, dusk and in the wee hours of the morning - because ideally this is when they will need the most space.

If you have a look at the stickied thread on indoor housing, there are some ideas there. Free-ranging all day and night is obviously preferable but if you have to keep him confined I have always found pens that can fold away to be best, as I can set it up when I am going out and take it down when I get back in and the rabbits can free-range. This means that it doesn't matter how much space it takes up, because you are not there using the space anyway. However, recently I was thinking to move my pair back indoors and saw this, which can be made to your specifications, as it is much prettier than a cage: https://www.facebook.com/Manorpethousing?fref=ts
 
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