my bunnie seems hungry - am I starving him????????

I know, I know unless you give unlimited food to aninmals you can quite often get that thing where they eat like you haven't feed them for days. Worried by the fact I could see no hay being eaten after he had his teeth out and also by the sticky poos I decided to get back to basics. Burgess pellets, hay and grass. I also got the weight of bunnie from the vets 1.72Kg and worked out at 3-3.5% of body weight (back of burgess packet) thats 51-60g of pellets. A few days later one little tiny dribble poo and the rest are fine. Also got some other hay (hes got 3 types now!) in a shop yesteday - alfala which I gave him a small amount of (the packet was tiny). He ate some of that definatly. When hes outside he seems to eat grass (not very well only manages to get the tops off) but how do you know when your bunnie is eating enough hay? What is enough? And with it in the litter trays (3 of them) its hard to see a small aount going. I really find it hard to work out if bunnies are loosing weight and I have no way to weight him. Am I being too parranoid about the hay thing cos they don't eat masses of it so I might never see him eat it? I am really bored with this stage and want to see his little dandlion eating face again ;-(

Do you have kitchen scales? These usually go up to 5kg and are plenty for bunny weighing. If you don't you can get them fairly cheapy about £15-20 but you may be able to find them cheaper at a charity shop.

You can encourage more hay eating by putting in/next to the litter trays and areas he snoozes.

The pellet quantities sound fine to me and that his poop is normal is a good indication your getting the balence right.

Tam

Hay

Don't worry about him not seeming to eat much hay.

Mine has hay which is topped up every day and night. Flopsy eats all hers and is quite content with just hay for a few days. Sweep however, acts the starving bunny EVERY time we go past her cage. She will take food off us everytime (if we offered - which we dont), but will rarely eat her hay, until shes pulled it out the rack, made it into a nest and led on it for a few days, then she may not eat much of it, sticking to carrots instead.

Some bunnies will eat the hay, some a lot some a little and some don't eat it at all or maybe one bite every so often. Providing the vet is happy with the health of your bunny you shouldn't worry so much, buit it might be worth asking him/her if they can recommend food for your baby.

Hi There, I know what you mean, it is difficult to tell if bunnies are eating hay unless you see them. You could try introducing Burgess Forage or Spillers readigrass if you haven't already. Bunnymail sell the Spillers in small 1 kg bags if you only have 1 or 2 bunnies, if you have a few readigrass comes in big 15 kg bags for about £7 Forage only comes in 1 kgs. Both are dried grass which is similar to hay but smell lovely and is in shorter strands. My lot eat heaps of the stuff along with hay, even the hay fusspots will eat readigrass. Its higher in fibre than hay i think but shorter strands so hay will need to be available as well, seems to have persauded my non hay eater to eat a little bit of hay as well.

Angela

I do have kitchen scales but its larger than the pan ;-(

I got some alfala and timothy hay (ie two new types) this week but it needs cutting up so I kinda have to prepare it first. If not he just seems to struggle with it. The bags are rather small so putting it in each of the litter trays they go very quickly. I will check out those other sources, thanks.

by feeding hay in a hay ball or food ball i think they are called will help to see how much hay is being eaten by bun!
also helps boredom if in cage for long periods!
if your bun has teeth probs hay is going to be one of the hardest things for him or her to eat you could either buy the chooped sort which i thinks pets at home sell.
or use readie grass or graze on nice and short otherwise make sure he gets lots of fibre from other veg herbs weeds which you can chop yourself!