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how much do you feed a giant bunny

W

willowflower

Warren Scout
hi my rabbit is a cross between one of the giant breeds and i dont know how much to fed him. just now i'm feeding him pellets in the morning and night and veg 3 times a day he always has a constant supply of hay.

i'm just wondering if that is to much? his bowl is always empty when i check it

thanks
 
Best rule for the giant breeds is feed them as much as they want, as long as they are not becoming too fat. It's amazing how much they need to eat, it seems like a very large amount but they do need it...my Flemish Giant used to eat more than my 36 pound dog!

In general they will not overeat on pellets, although you get the occasional odd bunny. Once he starts leaving a little bit in the bowl every day, you can start feeding him about that amount.
 
I have to disagree with free-feeding pellets, unless the rabbit is still growing. I know of many rabbits who will eat too many pellets if they get the chance. My Loki is one, and when I first got him I had to be very strict to teach him to eat hay, which he had never seen before and was not about to touch. He used to be a pellet piggy, and boy did it show!

I go by the HRS recommendations, although each bun is different and may need to have their diet tailored a bit.
http://www.rabbit.org/faq/sections/diet.html

How old is your rabbit? If he's fully grown (1-1.5 years old for a giant), the HRS recommends 1/4-1/2 cup of pellets per 6 lbs of body weight, depending on his metabolism and how much veggies he gets. You'll also want to make sure he's eating lots of hay. If he's not, try decreasing the pellets a little.

I don't have a giant (I wish I did), but I have seen some people with french lops around here, and I'm sure they'll chime in too.
 
kiz said:
Best rule for the giant breeds is feed them as much as they want, as long as they are not becoming too fat. It's amazing how much they need to eat, it seems like a very large amount but they do need it...my Flemish Giant used to eat more than my 36 pound dog!

In general they will not overeat on pellets, although you get the occasional odd bunny. Once he starts leaving a little bit in the bowl every day, you can start feeding him about that amount.
Click to expand...


i dissagree totally, you feed them the same as any other rabbits and if not slighlty less, 50 grams per kilo of rabbit, but no more than that as they already have a dissadvantage of being heavy making them over weight as well is a crime, you need to keep ginats on the lean side to avoid medical issues
 
I followed the HRS guidelines when I got my first Flemish since he was my first giant breed, and he ended up getting too skinny with the 1/4 - 1/2 cup per 6 lbs rule. And this was a very lazy rabbit. After talking to some Flemish breeders they said the best thing to do is free feed until they are leaving a bit of food and then start feeding that amount. It has worked just fine for all the giant rabbits I have had and I have never had one get "too fat". That's just my experience though, I've noticed the HRS guidelines need some adjusting and increasing with the giant breeds...fine for the small, medium and large ones.

I suppose it would depend on the individual rabbit's metabolism too, but that's why you start limiting it once you have a general idea of how much they need to eat to have a little extra.
 
I don't feed my Flemish giant (Strawberry in sig) any more than the other rabbits - and I don't mean by weight. He and his girly friend get three handfuls of pellets between them - the usual winter allotment for a pair. He just seems to get bigger even on that amount :roll: He eats loads of hay. It is even riskier to let giants get overweight as their bones already have more to cope with than other rabbits.

I certainly wouln't feed a giant more than two handfuls a day, it would be asking for trouble. I suspect that Strawberry would eat as much as he was given and suffer for it.
 
My giant (Continental Giant x French Lop) gets twice as many pellets as my standard sized rabbits (and he is more than twice their weight at the moment). He also gets twice as many vegetables and he gets as much hay and dry grass as he can eat.

Vera
 
I just got a Giant doe and she's a tubster because she was free fed pellets. They will overeat! Mine get two bowls a day and sometimes don't eat it all. They also get veg several times a day too and plenty of hay.
 
PLEASE dont overfeed your rabbit.I have french lops and although they WOULD eat more than i give them they dont NEED to.I had a friend who overfed her bunny and he ended up with bad problems.They need no more than a normal bunny.
 
I more or less freefeed rabbits until they are about 6 months old, only then do I start to cut down their pellets. Vera
 
all my buns have 1 bowl of pellets a day and if they are empty - tuff!! they will have to wait till the morning for a bowl full.

however they do have access to mountains of grass and hay each day so they're not starving and they get veg in the evenings.
 
Rabbits do not need a large amount of pellets in their diet. A rabbits diet should consist of 80 - 90% hay and grasses with the rest comprising of veggies and pellets. Regardless of size (I have tiny nethies up to large breed) I only give the bunnies here a small spoonful of pellets once a day. They have unlimited access to hay and grasses and get veggies once a day, they do extremly well on this and have very few health problems. In the wild they will spend all day eating grass and vegetation, not filling themselves up on endless bowls of pellets :thumb:
 
I've been feeding my Frenchie Storm as much as he likes :? :oops: I have been told it's OK while he is still growing. He is now around 7 months old. Is he still growing? should I reduce his food now? he also eats a lot of hay and has fresh veggies too. Gypsy, my lionhead, doesn't eat much anyway. she doesn't pig out on pellets like storm, just picks at them.
 
This thread is almost ten years old!

I am pretty sure thoughts on diet, rabbit welfare, veterinary science etc have changed a lot in ten years. As have the ingredients of pellets. The fibrefirst I feed didn't even exist!
 
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