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Senior or junior pellets for older rabbit?

Liz47

Liz47

Wise Old Thumper
Beano is almost 7 and she has lost a bit of weight, mainly round her back end, so the vet and I believe this to be normal aging as it's not a drastic amount. She also has arthritis is her hips, I was a bit surprised at this as wasn't expecting her to be aging yet but she is quite a big rabbit. So I am thinking to help her keep on weight should I change her onto a mix of adult and senior or junior pellets? Her husbun is only 2 years old so will keep the adult pellets in as well for him, although I don't suppose it matters if he eats a mix including senior/junior or should I feed them separately and include the senior/junior pellets just for Beano? I will have a look on excel and see which has higher calories and see which would be better.

Thanks in advance :)
 
I shall be interested to see what others do as I am in a similar situation. I have an almost 7 year old (doe), a 6 year old (buck) and a 5 year old (buck). The doe has always been more dainty than the other two, but is now showing small signs of stiffness and loss of muscle around her back end. I'm monitoring their weight regularly and she hasn't really lost very much. They all eat a lot (greedy Rexes), but mostly hay and forage! The only change I have made so far is to hand feed their pellets, the doe gets given the largest ones and the other two the smallest (science selective normal pellet) :) I can't imagine that changing pellets for mine will make much difference as they don't have that many.
 
I think the senior pellets are designed not too put weight on so much, as I guess they reason older rabbits move around less, though I could be wrong on that. I've switched mine (9 and 7 in a month's time) to 4+ science selective but that's more due to their shape than anything. Smudge has choked on normal SS and has also gone off Fibafirst after they changed it.

I give Mini a few Protexin Profibre pellets, I find they're really good to help her keep weight on.
 
Liz47 said:
Beano is almost 7 and she has lost a bit of weight, mainly round her back end, so the vet and I believe this to be normal aging as it's not a drastic amount. She also has arthritis is her hips, I was a bit surprised at this as wasn't expecting her to be aging yet but she is quite a big rabbit. So I am thinking to help her keep on weight should I change her onto a mix of adult and senior or junior pellets? Her husbun is only 2 years old so will keep the adult pellets in as well for him, although I don't suppose it matters if he eats a mix including senior/junior or should I feed them separately and include the senior/junior pellets just for Beano? I will have a look on excel and see which has higher calories and see which would be better.

Thanks in advance :)
Click to expand...

I add in a few higher calorie pellets and veggies for the elderlies :D
 
Liz47 said:
Beano is almost 7 and she has lost a bit of weight, mainly round her back end, so the vet and I believe this to be normal aging as it's not a drastic amount. She also has arthritis is her hips, I was a bit surprised at this as wasn't expecting her to be aging yet but she is quite a big rabbit. So I am thinking to help her keep on weight should I change her onto a mix of adult and senior or junior pellets? Her husbun is only 2 years old so will keep the adult pellets in as well for him, although I don't suppose it matters if he eats a mix including senior/junior or should I feed them separately and include the senior/junior pellets just for Beano? I will have a look on excel and see which has higher calories and see which would be better.

Thanks in advance :)
Click to expand...

It may be that she has lost some muscle mass/tone due to her arthritis. Have you actually been weighing her regularly to see if she really is losing weight and not just changing shape due to loss of muscle tone? If she is a healthy weight at the moment then I would not want to be increasing her calorie intake if she is not actually losing weight. Putting on weight when she does not really need to wont help her arthritis. What would be better would be to try to build up some muscle tone again by giving her some gentle physio and massage.
 
Jane makes a good point, being overweight can be worse for rabbits as they get older or have mobility issues so weighing is a good way to make sure you're getting it right rather than judging by eye which is tricky. Being a little lighter but maintaining that, not continuing to drop weight is ok.

If she does need to gain weight then hand feeding a few junior pellets will help. I think the senior ones are actually lower calorie - presumably for bunnies that get less active as they age). It won't harm a young bunny to eat them, but they are higher calorie so they can make them gain weight so it's worth weighing him to and make sure he doesn't go the opposite direction and get podgy.
 
Thank you for the replies. I liked the idea of the senior pellets for the added glucosamine for her joints, although it is only a small amount but the junior are higher calorie/protein. I will look into the Protexin Profibre pellets thank you for that suggestion. She weighed 2.6kg around January and when she went for her vaccine a couple of weeks ago she weighed 2.4kg and is the same as that now, it just seems her back end is more boney now, around her hip.
 
Tamsin said:
You could look at Oxbow Joint Support: https://www.viovet.co.uk/Oxbow_Natural_Science_Joint_Support_for_Small_Animals/c17362/ they are a sort of hay based treat with glucosamine etc. in. I think the daily dose is 1-2 pieces so you could add those in separately to pellets and it would be easier to make sure she was the one eating them :)
Click to expand...

I have some of these got today, was reading and they sound good and being oxbow to , I think the senior rabbit pellets are also as you say not to do with calories but contain glucosamine to, rosie when she got elderly vet gave her some special vetmed rabbit food with glucosamine
 
Liz47 said:
Thank you for the replies. I liked the idea of the senior pellets for the added glucosamine for her joints, although it is only a small amount but the junior are higher calorie/protein. I will look into the Protexin Profibre pellets thank you for that suggestion. She weighed 2.6kg around January and when she went for her vaccine a couple of weeks ago she weighed 2.4kg and is the same as that now, it just seems her back end is more boney now, around her hip.
Click to expand...

I think you're very wise to tackle the issue of weight loss now instead of leaving it to get worse.

Once an elderly has lost weight, it can be the devil's own job to put it back again! I know - I've tried :D
 
Tamsin said:
Jane makes a good point, being overweight can be worse for rabbits as they get older or have mobility issues so weighing is a good way to make sure you're getting it right rather than judging by eye which is tricky. Being a little lighter but maintaining that, not continuing to drop weight is ok.

If she does need to gain weight then hand feeding a few junior pellets will help. I think the senior ones are actually lower calorie - presumably for bunnies that get less active as they age). It won't harm a young bunny to eat them, but they are higher calorie so they can make them gain weight so it's worth weighing him to and make sure he doesn't go the opposite direction and get podgy.
Click to expand...

Tamsin said:
You could look at Oxbow Joint Support: https://www.viovet.co.uk/Oxbow_Natural_Science_Joint_Support_for_Small_Animals/c17362/ they are a sort of hay based treat with glucosamine etc. in. I think the daily dose is 1-2 pieces so you could add those in separately to pellets and it would be easier to make sure she was the one eating them :)
Click to expand...



Good advice from Tamsin here

Regular weighing of all Pet Rabbits is a really important part of their general care, IMO :D
 
Thank you for the further replies :D Will order some of those and keep weighing her weekly, I weigh Jake too who is steady around 1.9kg :)
 
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