Minimum amount of pellets I can give to indoor bun?

[nessar]

What would be the MINIMUM amount of pellets I could give to an indoor bun to make sure she was getting enough vitamins, particularly vit d as she is indoors. She is now 2kg but really should be around 1.7kg. She just keeps putting on weight!

At the moment she is having a tablespoon of Excel Adult a day.

I also feed her an apple stick daily, and something else (hawthorne, herbs, spring greens, veg, carrot or apple) but not large amounts. So she's not getting a large amount of vits from them. She has baled hay, so I think that is multiculture, its good quality, as her main hay and h4p Timothy and Rye most days, with Alfalfa King Timothy and Burns Green Oat occasionally, so she gets a good variety of grasses. She also often gets a handful of readigrass mixed with herbs and Woodlands Timothy hay with apple and carrot bits.

First thing I know is to cut the fruit out entirely, but I think I need to cut back on the pellets as well to an absolute minimum.

 

[GrahamL]

Vit D requirements have been proved to not be as high as previous thought in a study. I'll go find PrettyLupin's thread in a minute for you about it.

Ginger has 2-6 (depending on my wife's will power :lol per day. Biccy has a couple more - often 4-8.

Sky-O i think it is feeds a single SS pellet to most of her buns, per day :wave: (pick me up on this if im wrong Sky!)

 

[nessar]

Thanks Gray, I think I'll change them on to SS, been meaning to for ages and they did well on a mix of ss and excel, but was going to wait till I got some samples of their monoforage food through. SS is much easier to tell exactly how much you are giving, rather than using a measuring spoon.

Tempted to get her the vet care weight management stuff but it seems its meant to be fed adlib, which I wouldnt, so I assume the vitamin levels for the same volume are lower.

She's always been a chubbster, from the day I got her at 16 weeks, but Alice was in the process of cutting their pellets down when I got her, so I assumed it was just baby fat and would drop when she was on an eggcup a day - well she's not a baby anymore. It hasnt helped that the room theyre in is now only 12x14ft, and has furniture round all the walls, the previous room was much bigger.

A friend of mine has nicknamed her Pudding recently she doesnt look that big, but when you pick her up she's round, and you can hardly feel her ribs. Makes me feel like I'm neglecting her, like she's a rabbit in a small hutch being fed bowls of mix, but I'm really rather strict with their diet, although they did get a few slices of banana over Christmas as treats. Perhaps she's just very good at keeping her weight up on hay and doesnt need the extras, she's a little star when it comes to hay eating. Sorry, just thinking out loud here.

They are being trialled as free-range 24/7 again at the moment, so hopefully that will help.

 

[GrahamL]

Many bunnies can live on a hay only diet, and do so, and keep weight on, and are still getting nutrients etc from the hay - it just has to be EXCELLENT quality hay.

So i guess waht i'm trying to say is, cut it down, but do it slowly, rather than just do it, and see how she progresses. She'll become even more of a good hay eater hopefully. We go through 10Kg every 2-3 weeks depending on if its a Ginger dental week or not :wave:

 

[Sky-O]

Most of my indoor bunnies get one pellet in the morning and one in the evening, unless there is a health reason to do different (not sure why I said 'most' because I only have two healthy indoor bunnies, but the healthy ones get one in the morning, and one in the evening).

My vet is very happy with them and how they are. They are both 4.5 years old now and have thrived on this diet for a long time He is also aware of their diet, and the reason we have to keep it so low is predominantly due to their dental issues and increasing the time between dentals. It has worked very well in that respect.

I tried upping it a tiny bit and Star now looks like a rugby ball (we only went up to three pellets in the morning and three in the evening) so we are now back to one and the rabbits look very sorry for themselves. :lol: They just chug the hay away though.

 

[GrahamL]

Most of my indoor bunnies get one pellet in the morning and one in the evening, unless there is a health reason to do different (not sure why I said 'most' because I only have two healthy indoor bunnies, but the healthy ones get one in the morning, and one in the evening).

My vet is very happy with them and how they are. They are both 4.5 years old now and have thrived on this diet for a long time He is also aware of their diet, and the reason we have to keep it so low is predominantly due to their dental issues and increasing the time between dentals. It has worked very well in that respect.

I tried upping it a tiny bit and Star now looks like a rugby ball (we only went up to three pellets in the morning and three in the evening) so we are now back to one and the rabbits look very sorry for themselves. :lol: They just chug the hay away though.

:lol: I can just picture a fluffy rugby ball now :lol:

 

[Sky-O]

:lol: I can just picture a fluffy rugby ball now :lol:

:thumb: He has the fluffiest fur out of all of them because he has the german fur so he looks worse than he really is. Honest. :lol:

 

[GrahamL]

:thumb: He has the fluffiest fur out of all of them because he has the german fur so he looks worse than he really is. Honest. :lol:

:lol:

*goes off to look up 'German Fur' but expects some results he wont want to see*

 

[Sky-O]

:lol:

*goes off to look up 'German Fur' but expects some results he wont want to see*

:lol: :lol: :lol:

I wouldn't bother :lol: Basically the nethies over there have thick and luscious fur, thicker than what we have here, and many nethies have been imported to try and make our furs thicker in nethies. Sandy is purebred and has the most amazing fur and when my friend saw her (who does breed nethies and has seen and possibly had her own germann furred bunnies) she said she felt she had german fur in her. Of the seven babies Star is the only one with fur like her, the others are very sleek, more like Sky.

Sorry for hi-jacking your thread nessar!

 

[GrahamL]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

I wouldn't bother :lol: Basically the nethies over there have thick and luscious fur, thicker than what we have here, and many nethies have been imported to try and make our furs thicker in nethies. Sandy is purebred and has the most amazing fur and when my friend saw her (who does breed nethies and has seen and possibly had her own germann furred bunnies) she said she felt she had german fur in her. Of the seven babies Star is the only one with fur like her, the others are very sleek, more like Sky.

Sorry for hi-jacking your thread nessar!

Thanks :thumb:

And yes, sorry nessar

 

[nessar]

Dont worry, its all interesting :lol: I wonder if different country's 'lines' of rabbits differ in other ways as well, such as health/dental/social ways. A bit like the male mice of the US always having to live alone and UK ones often getting along, or William's dwarf hamster hypothosis about US pairs being less likely to split.

I think I will keep her on her tablespoon a day pellets, with no veg (although maybe some dried herbs/hawthorne and some veg peelings) till I get the SS ones delivered, then move her onto a tablespoon a day of those and then decrease - does that sound good? I imagine a tablespoon of SS is only like 4-6 pellets anyway.

I'll keep Barney on his Excel Junior for now as he has put a bit of weight on which is good. Why cant they both be normal, awkward little monsters :lol:

Another question, is there a way of getting Barney's vitamin powder and bisolvon powder into him in a way other than sprinkled on his pellets, as he often leaves some of the powder at the bottom of his bowl, and it cant be nice, powdery pellets. I can soak them and he likes that better, but really I dont want to decrease wear on his teeth in any way, especially as I think we've been about 3 months without a dental now and his teeth were checked earlier in the week and seem fine, so his current diet is obviously working. The vet suggested pineapple juice but I dont really want him having that much sugar and acid daily - or would this be okay? It is a pinch of each so rather too much to disolve on a leaf...

 

[Lolly's mum]

am i over-feeding my two:shock: they have a tablespoon of pellets each a day (half in am half in pm)
they are not huge veggie fans but eddie will eat carrot and sprout occasionally, i'm sure bellbell would too only eddie tends to snaffle them before she gets a chance (the veggies also seem to be eaten when i'm not looking! so not really sure who eats what)

they are great hay munchers though, they get a layer of meadow hay, then some timothy hay, then some vita verde topped off with orchard grass