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overweight.

My neutered male rabbit is overweight, how do I get his weight down. He is a house rabbit that goes in the garden and is never in a cage and has the run of the the house when we go to bed at night. We have five cats that he chases off and he sometimes steals their biscuits.
 
Hey - welcome to RU :)

Does he get fed pellets? How much? Reducing his pellets if he's overfed is good, or scattering them around so he gets more exercise is also good! Just encouraging him to get more exercise would make a big difference - does he have plenty of stimulation inside? Tunnels, different levels etc?

Also if you can prevent him from getting the cats' biscuits, that'd definitely help.
 
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Its good he has lots of exercise space. Keep him away from the cat biscuits , they are totally inappropriate for a bunny to eat asides from their calorie content. feed diet of just good quality hay & greens (forage & herbs). That should do it
A neutered girlfriend correctly bonded (you will get loads of info on here) might keep him more active & the majority of buns are much happier when they have the company of their own kind
Good luck (& welcome to RU)
 
We were hoping he would bond with one of the kittens, they are ten weeks old, the other three were already adult when we got him two years ago. We did have a female rabbit as well but she died two months ago and was quite vicious as she would bite the cats. She was only about 22 months old.
 
Pellets, hay, carrot tops,all kinds of greens, red, green, orange and yellow peppars, different herbs out of the garden and many other things that he likes. He is never caged up so has exercise but my wife thinks that when we gave him mussili that he put on weight but I don,t know. I give him greens off the allotment when their is some and get him clovers and dandelions so he has everything he should have except cat biscuits,I am stopping him getting them.
 
Sounds like he might be eating a little too much. A dessertspoon full of Muesli, lots of hay and a small amount of veg is usually a good diet for most rabbits. Of course they would eat more but peppers may be a bit sweet. Try not to let him get any more overweight as he will have start to have problems.

Female rabbits are quite territorial maybe why she used to attack the cats.
 
Our vet advised us the other week that they should have an egg cup of pellets, lots and lots of hay and greens/veg for a treat.
 
My neutered male rabbit is overweight, how do I get his weight down. He is a house rabbit that goes in the garden and is never in a cage and has the run of the the house when we go to bed at night. We have five cats that he chases off and he sometimes steals their biscuits.

We now have six cats.
 
He is doing fine though he has damaged one of the apple trees and ate two peppar plants down to the soil, he really is a mischief.
 
Hi I have not been on for some time but have decided to start chatting again. Our rabbit Mason died last Friday or to be more truthful he had to be put to sleep and he was only four and a half years old. I am finding it hard to get over it and miss him as much as any cat I have lost in the past. I will come on again and give some details about what happened but for the moment I cannot say anymore as I am too upset.
 
Hi I have not been on for some time but have decided to start chatting again. Our rabbit Mason died last Friday or to be more truthful he had to be put to sleep and he was only four and a half years old. I am finding it hard to get over it and miss him as much as any cat I have lost in the past. I will come on again and give some details about what happened but for the moment I cannot say anymore as I am too upset.

I'm so sorry you lost Mason :cry: thinking of you xx
 
Hi I have not been on for some time but have decided to start chatting again. Our rabbit Mason died last Friday or to be more truthful he had to be put to sleep and he was only four and a half years old. I am finding it hard to get over it and miss him as much as any cat I have lost in the past. I will come on again and give some details about what happened but for the moment I cannot say anymore as I am too upset.


I'm so sorry to hear this :(
 
On the Wednesday night Mason was okay and was eating and running around as normal and at about midnight he went into his pen himself which he sometimes did while other times he would not. The next morning I was up about eight and opened his door for him to come out and then left him while I made a cup of tea, but later on after I had gone to watch the tennis I came through into the back room again and noticed he had not moved. I lifted him out and put him on the floor but realized that his back legs were not moving and his front legs just slid as if he was doing the splits, so I put him in his bed which is a cat bed and got the wife up who came downstairs and after looking at him said we should take him to the vets. When we got there the vet had a look at him and put him on the floor but he still did not move so suggested giving him an xray and putting him on antibiotics to see if he improved. We phoned later and they told us their was no change and to give it 24 hours before deciding what to do. The next day we were told that their was no improvement and also he had not eaten anything and that the xray showed no broken bones so they did not know what was wrong with him and that it could be a viral infection or possibly mites. He had all the inoculations he was supposed to have and was up to date with them and a more senior vet said it would be kinder to let him go. My wife and I went to say our final goodbyes later that afternoon and he was then put to sleep though we did not watch that so he was alive when I last saw him. From being perfectly alright on the Wednesday night we were saying goodbye a day and a half later. Have any of you any idea what could have been wrong, we could have had an MRI for him but it would cost about 2 thousand pounds and even then their was no certainty that he could have been saved.
 
I am sorry to hear about Mason. I have seen what you describe before but have no answers as to what was the cause. Take care xx
 
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