confused about how much food babies should have

[pollypocket]

Almost 9 weeks old, mini lops, I've been giving pellets morning and night, they have unlimited Timothy Hay. Also maybe a couple of carrot tops a day.
Going back over the advice I got from the owner, it says feed rabbit food once a day.
I've been finding very soft poo, all in a little line of pellets, now from what I understand, they are supposed to eat them and I shouldn't see them.
What am I doing wrong? Too many pellets?
Do the once a day that the owner said in her care sheet? That, I believe, is what she said she does.
Hay and pellets am, hay and veg evening.

Have I been overdoing the pellets. The bowl is empty by evening from the morning meal and empty by breakfast from the evening meal. I just totally mis read what she wrote. Now I'm worried I'm causing them problems.
I've also seen she said no veg for 2 weeks.
We are at the vets saturday for our first injections.

 

[Family_Moose]

Just a quick reply as I'm mid dinner, I would say the dirstbthing to cut out is carrot tops if theybare getting the orange as well as the greens! Carrots are high in sugar so if you're feeding them daily that's a lot of sugar!
I got my girls when they were 11/12 weeks old, they were on hay and they got about 1/2 a cup of pellets between them a day, they are larger rabbits, I gradually introduced greens mostly harbs like parsley & coriander.

I would say with pellets & carrot tops their diet is quite rich so they're not needing to eat their caecotrophes, hopefully cutting down the carrots and possibly the pellets amount will help.

 

[pollypocket]

Just a quick reply as I'm mid dinner, I would say the dirstbthing to cut out is carrot tops if theybare getting the orange as well as the greens! Carrots are high in sugar so if you're feeding them daily that's a lot of sugar!
I got my girls when they were 11/12 weeks old, they were on hay and they got about 1/2 a cup of pellets between them a day, they are larger rabbits, I gradually introduced greens mostly harbs like parsley & coriander.

I would say with pellets & carrot tops their diet is quite rich so they're not needing to eat their caecotrophes, hopefully cutting down the carrots and possibly the pellets amount will help.

They did have carrot tops and a carrot this morning.
Before I got them she was feeding them carrots and spring greens daily.
But I don't give them carrots every day.

So do you think pellets and hay only in the morning and maybe the odd carrot top or bit of green veg in the eve with hay. Or cut out the carrot tops.
We have cabbage, thyme and mint, but nothing else at the moment that would suit.

 

[pollypocket]

Sorry I meant cabbage, basil and mint, not thyme.

 

[Amy104]

How much dry food are you feeding? You could top it up 100 times a day and I gaurentee it would be empty - bunnies are greedy. Lots of people don't worry too much about dry food intack for growing babies but if you are having tummy issues I'd be inclined to reduce it slightly to encourage more hay eating. Try a couple of days without the veg and see if that helps. Different bunnies have different tollerances.

 

[pollypocket]

How much dry food are you feeding? You could top it up 100 times a day and I gaurentee it would be empty - bunnies are greedy. Lots of people don't worry too much about dry food intack for growing babies but if you are having tummy issues I'd be inclined to reduce it slightly to encourage more hay eating. Try a couple of days without the veg and see if that helps. Different bunnies have different tollerances.

They get 2 whole bowlfuls a day.

 

[Freakinfreak]

How many grams is a bowlful? Then you can give more accurate information that people can help with.

Carrots are sugary, so maybe once a week a small amount the size of a thumb would be best.

 

[pollypocket]

160 grams twice a day.

 

[dumblepaws]

160 grams twice a day.

That's a lot!
The recommendation of most manufacturers is 25g per kg of bunny per day - mine get 25g between them per day
Saying that, whilst they're growing there is a school of thought that they should be allowed unlimited pellets up to 6mths - but I think this is a bit excessive and probably 25g per kg per bunny per day is fine as long as they have unlimited hay

 

[pollypocket]

That's a lot!
The recommendation of most manufacturers is 25g per kg of bunny per day - mine get 25g between them per day
Saying that, whilst they're growing there is a school of thought that they should be allowed unlimited pellets up to 6mths - but I think this is a bit excessive and probably 25g per kg per bunny per day is fine as long as they have unlimited hay

This is it, I've read about unlimited pellets until 6 months old, that's why I'm so confused. They do have unlimited hay.
I'll reduce the amount of pellets so they have to eat more hay. Hopefully I'll stop seeing the poo and just normal poo.

 

[Amy104]

I've never fed baby bunnies unlimited pellets and never had a problem with underdeveloped bunnies so I think you should be fine to cut down a bit, just don't do it to fast make sure its gradual.

 

[pollypocket]

I've never fed baby bunnies unlimited pellets and never had a problem with underdeveloped bunnies so I think you should be fine to cut down a bit, just don't do it to fast make sure its gradual.

I didn't give them so much this morning and I noticed they actually made a beeline for the fresh hay rather than straight for the food bowl.

 

[Babybella]

We've had to cut down on pellets, we give ours just a small handful once a day. Some days they don't get the pellets, as like you are discovering they go for those rather than hay. Now Bella is a little older she's happy eating both but for a while she would only eat pellets and stopped eating so much hay, obviously hoping we'd increase the pellets. We found a similar thing happened when we introduced parsley, she loves the stuff so again would stop eating so much hay so she hasn't had parsley for a while now but we will introduce it again soon.