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Leaving my bunny to starve. update p2.....

K

Kylie541

Warren Veteran
I have a 4 month old lionhead and he is a little piglet. I top his food up three times a day and he usually makes it last. He has just started spending lots of time out of his cage and I just put him to bed with a good amount of food (pellets and mix as he is being gradually changed over) and he ate a lot of it in one go:shock: . He has about a 1/4 left to last ALL night should I give him more (don't want to make him ill). I should add he has and eats loads of hay I just don't want him to starve to death.:cry:
 
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Until the age of 6 months it is recommended to feed them unlimited pellets, however as you say some are pure greedy and eat the lot....how much are you feding per day? However if you keep giving him pellets chances are he will stop eating hay altogether.
 
I don't weigh it but he has a couple of rather big handfuls 3 x a day. I gave him some herbal garden treat stuff so he has that too. I don't want to put more pellets in as he is 6 days into change over from cereal to excel dwarf/junior. I think I will leave him tonight he has plenty of hay and I will be topping him up at 6. Up until tonight he has always had lots of pellets in his bowl but today he has eaten so much I am frightened he will get sick.:cry:
 
I think that is plenty :shock: I only fed babies twice a day but they always have at least their body size in hay available....that certainly wont do any harm.
 
I know it's too much pellets and he has only eaten like that today. Usually I empty food in the bin when I clean him out and just top up at bed time. But today he has cleared his bowl three times. I think it's because he loves the pellets and he isn't on veg yet either. He has loads of hay as he has a nest ball I stuff with hay and he sits and eats it and he has a hay manger thing as well as hay in his litter tray. He is a good hay eater :D
 
If you are throwing pellets away he is getting to many anyway.

Try one large handful of pellets 3 times a day plus all the hay he can eat :D
 
I would not give your rabbit any more pellets, all normal sized rabbits even young ones need approximately 50g maximum of pellets a day. To keep a rabbit with healthy teeth and with good gut motility the rest of their diet should comprise a small amount of vegetables with all the rest being hay. 80 - 90% of their diet should be made up of hay.

Most rabbits will eat as many pellets as you will give them, giving them as much as they will eat will often lead to longer term problems and also teaches they them to eat pellets and not hay ;) There are a number of people who just feed their rabbits hay and a small amount of vegetables which is what they would eat if they lived in the wild. Restricting pellets will lead to a healthier rabbit than if you feed too much.
 
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Has your rabbit been weaned onto veg?

Just you made no mention of it. If yes, then one meal can comprise purely of Veggies.
 
No he has never had veg nor will he be for a while. He eats a fair bit of hay I do encourage that. I am getting confused as everyone said he should have unlimited pellets and now u say no. I haven't given him anymore and he is having a snooze:lol:
 
Kylie541 said:
I am getting confused as everyone said he should have unlimited pellets and now u say no.:
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If you read this thread by Cheryl, you may understand where I am coming from. http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/showthread.php?t=88586&highlight=unlimited+pellets As Cheryl points out rabbits are designed to eat unprocessed foods like hay and grass rather than processed foods such as pellets. All the baby rabbits which have gone through ARC are fed on restricted pellets and lots of good quality hay.
 
Like I said the general theory is unlimited but IMO some bunnies are greedy and will eat whatever is put in front of them, and obesity causes lots of health problems.

So limit the pellets, all the hay he wants and I would say he is old enough to start to be weaned, very carefully, onto veggies.
 
I think you are feeding him fine for his age - 3 feeds a day sounds right as he's growing still, just don't top it up in between - there's no way he'll starve overnight if he has fresh hay - I give fresh hay twice a day as they tend to leave the less tasty bits and always enjoy playing with a new bundle, hunting through it. If you're changing over his dry food at the moment I can't see the rush to change another element of his diet by giving veg too - wait till he's settled on the new food you're giving him. I give my adult rabbits a small handful morning and evening.

When you introduce veg just give a small, postage stamp sized piece on day one, nothing on day 2, a small piece again on day 3, and so on over 2 weeks - patiently increasing the amount so his stomach can get used to it. Just one type of veg should be introduced at a time too. I give my adult rabbits about a small leaf of greens, a tiny piece of brocolli and a small chunk of carrot - so not a lot of veg but mainly they need hay.
 
I would give him unlimited amt. of hay. You can give a reasonable amt. of pellet and let him eat the hay when the pellet run out.

Some rabbit are REALLY lazy. You have to put the hay literally in front of them or else if the pellet bowl is sitting in front of them, they'll eat the pellet.

A full grown 2 yr. or up rabbit should have 80% of diet as hay.

But if it is up to me, when they are young, I let them eat as much pellet as they like. When my bunny was young, she eat 1 bowl full of hay and a lot of pellet too. Due to teeth problem, she stop eating the hay.
 
This 'unlimited pellets' phrase must be incredibly confusing people. 'Unlimited' would imply the bowl was never empty. Surely what we are talking about here is a limited amount, but more than an adult would get.
 
SarahP said:
Surely what we are talking about here is a limited amount, but more than an adult would get.
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I feed exactly the same amount as I do an adult rabbit, I have a scoop I use which is enough for one rabbit, my mum and 4 babies gets 5 scoops a day. They are all very good hay eaters ;)
 
jrn1310 said:
If you read this thread by Cheryl, you may understand where I am coming from. http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/showthread.php?t=88586&highlight=unlimited+pellets As Cheryl points out rabbits are designed to eat unprocessed foods like hay and grass rather than processed foods such as pellets. All the baby rabbits which have gone through ARC are fed on restricted pellets and lots of good quality hay.
Click to expand...

I'm inclined to agree now - I got the info from rabbit.org to feed unlimited pellets but when Shadow started putting on weight I thought it was a load of rubbish! He's always had hay available but now I've had it reiterated in my head that that should be the basis of their diets and they should eat as much as possible it makes much more sense to feed less pellets.
 
I am gonna have to limit his pellets as today he has done loads of those grape poo's (sorry can't write the technical word.) He eat's everything including lots of hay and yesterday he cleaned his bowl 3 times :shock:. I haven't given him veggie's as I am a little to frightened to. As many of you may remember I have lost 2 (neither of which had veg) so I won't take any chances with Buster. I am giving him till Friday then I am going to let him have some veg.:D He is also part way through being weaned onto excel (he wouldn't eat ss).
 
I always fed my bunnies the same amount of pellets when they were kits as I do now (they're 1.5 and 2.5 years old) and I'll probably do that to the new bunny as well.
As long as they have unlimited access to hay they should be fine:wave: (Hay is the most important food for a rabbit, the pellets are just to make sure they get all their vitamins, so they don't really need that much. I give Zakura (dwarf mix) 1 handful and Sasuke (standard rex) 2 handfulls each day, and he's not even eating it all:roll: )
 
Buns are greedy, they're probably not even hungry when they eat the pellets you give them, they just eat them because they are there. Mine get a small handful of science selective each morning. They get unlimited hay, which disappears so fast i have to top that up all the time. This is a good thing. On a night they get a bit of veg such as leafy greens, carrot tops, bit of parlsey. Im sure thats the right diet to be feeding them in the correct quantities. You are definately giving them too many nuggets, a small handful each on a morning is enough.
 
As long as you reduce the amount gradually, the bunny won't starve, and you can check that the hay gets eaten etc. :)
 
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