Bunnies eating an enormous amount......

Daisy and Gatsby are eating a huge amount of food! I know it should be unlimited while they are little (they're 9 weeks) but I have filled their bowl three times today (about 4 eggcups each time). They are also eating hay lots too.

Is this something I should watch out for? And I know the food should be unlimited but is refilling three times taking "unlimited" a bit too far? Obviously I don't want them to be too fat but realise they need to grow!

They are sooooo tame and friendly, it's hard not to feed them to see them rush to the food bowl!

Not sure about the pellets check on the bag for feeding guides, someone will have more info than me

but as for hay pretty sure they can eat as much of that as they like

My sisters babies ate all day every day until about four months old then that started to,slow down but still eat loads and love their hay

It does sound as though they are having a lot of pellets - but it's a long time since mine were babies so can't remember how much I gave them.

Make sure they are eating plenty of hay as it is so important.

Yes they're eating lots of hay too, I reckon they're just greedy!

Katex said:

Yes they're eating lots of hay too, I reckon they're just greedy!

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Just keep an eye and make sure they are not getting sticky bums. You can start to reduce pellets at 5-6 months I think otherwise

I think it's always a good idea to do 'unlimited, within reason' rather than fully unlimited, as you don't want them developing bad habits and not eating their hay. It's hard to visualize the size of their bowl but for a pair of 8+ weeks rabbits I would probably give one of those brown ceramic bowls with 'rabbit' on the side per day. But it also depends on what they have had before, you don't really want to increase that amount without good reason, and you don't want to decrease it suddenly either. So for now, I'd keep them on whatever amount the rescue/breeder had them on.

It's also a case of playing it by ear and adjusting the amount to ensure that they are eating a pile of hay the size of themselves (ideally) a day and that their bums are clean and they are eating their caecotrophs.

I'm not a fan of unlimited - I think they can grow just fine on limited and you made sure they get into good hay habits.

If you want a limit about 25g per 1kg of rabbit per day is a good guide.

I didn't/don't give my two unlimited. They had a handful in the morning, and a handful in the evening between them.

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I never gave Levi and Daisy unlimited either. They have only ever had an eggcupful each per day. Your bunnies will eat more than that just because they are giants though.

They do have the brown ceramic "rabbit" bowls! I've only given two today, simply because we were out and couldn't check in the middle of the day and feel sorry for them!

They hadn't eaten all of the pellets from this morning so I only topped it up tonight. I reckon they've had one and a half bowls full today, and they seem to be fine with that, hopefully they'll be ok with that.

They are eating hay and eating their caecotrophs too.

Ludo got ill when he was on unlimited as a young bun and the vet was sure that was the cause.

Perhaps use some alfafa hay as well as normal? It's more fattening.