Over weight and aggressive ( can't think of a kinder word ! )

Collected a bunny ad for free on FB . Her price kept dropping until free she is hugely over weight and I mean huge . Her hutch was too small for a hamster ! So I need ideas on getting her weight down x she is also very lungy and grunty !!! She had bitten previous owners and had scars to prove it !! How can I get her to like me !! Managed one stroke as feeding some sticky weed but got a grunt ! I'm not spaying until lost weight xx help !! Xx

The aggression is likely to be learnt behaviour and may well have developed because her hutch was so small, anyone putting things e.g. hands in was seriously invading her space!

As she's so over weight and has a history of lack of exercise you need to be careful about how much exercise she has. It's tempting to give a giant space and let her enjoy freedom but she may not have the muscle or bone structure to support binkies and running about at the moment, so increase gradually. Even a normal sized hutch will be a big change for her.

Generally just feeding the correct diet will bring weight down, so plenty of hay and only a small portion of high fibre dry food. How does she feel about hay? If she doesn't move much a treat ball for the dry food may encourage some gentle exercise.

You want a slow and steady loss rather than getting weight off asap. So weighing once a week and as long as it's going down even a little bit you are doing right.

For the aggression, I would give her a week or so to settle and keep your hands out of the hutch. You want to avoid triggering the behaviour because that reinforces it - she lunges & you back off = lunching works. Instead get her used to you being around, delivering tasty things but not trying to touch/grab her. If you need to do something in the hutch with her in it then, presuming it's got a bed divider, you can slide a spare piece of board across the entrance and close her one side whilst you put food or clean the other.

Thankyou xxx she is currently set up in an outhouse brick building so I have no need to pick her up x eating hay and I'm sprinkling pellets on top x currently sat with her reading a book and occasionally dropping herbs !!!

chance said:

Thankyou xxx she is currently set up in an outhouse brick building so I have no need to pick her up x eating hay and I'm sprinkling pellets on top x currently sat with her reading a book and occasionally dropping herbs !!!

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Sitting with a rabbit and not expecting anything of them is a great way of socialising :thumb:

At the rescue I work with, one of the volunteers used to simply sit and read poetry to the rabbits and they all came and hovered around her

Well done for rescuing this bunny x