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How much food

s.tephen

Young Bun
Hi

We are a very new to this

Can someone advise how much we should be feeding our 12 week old mini lops

This is what we are giving them just now, the 3 dishes in the morning and the pellets are topped up again at night with a few more leaves plus we are giving them plenty of hay, we have just bought meadow and Timothy hay to go with the green one they have already plus there hutch is covered in hay anyway

We are unsure if we are under it even over feeding them

Many thanks

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Feeding a younger bun is different to an adult one, but when your buns are adults you need to reduce the amount of pellets (and carrots) to increase the amount of hay they eat.
Hopefully someone with experience of feeding younger buns will be along shortly
 
There are different views about how much to feed young rabbits, who are still growing. I tend to try to ensure that my rabbits' diet is primarily hay/grass, so from an early age I don't feed a large quantity of pellets. My response to your thread reflects this view.

I would say from looking at your pics, that you are overfeeding particularly with pellets. It is very difficult though to judge quantities just by looking at pics. I do not feed any carrot, because of the sugar content.

Could you let us know exactly what is in the three different dishes. The top one is vegetables and herbs, the second looks like hay and the third looks like dried forage, but I'm not sure. In the purple dish, are there pellets in both sections?

I don't know if you have done this, but it's recommended when introducing new vegetables, to just feed a small amount at first to check that their digestion can cope with it. You might also have received advice from wherever you obtained the rabbits as to what they were used to eating. Young rabbits have quite fragile digestive systems, which can easily be upset. The best way to monitor whether any food is being accepted well by the rabbits is to monitor their poo :) Poo should be uniformly round, look dryish and should also look as though it is composed of hay.

Good to see you are using a water bowl. They tend to drink more from bowls than the bottles :)
 
Hello there. You are certainly being very generous! There really is no hard and fast rule for babies but if you give plenty of hay (which can be Alfalfa at this stage) or normal hay, a bowlful of pellets between the 2, then small amounts of a green veg, or a couple of Dandelion leaves, per day, this should be adequate. It's a bit like a human baby, you get to know if they need more or less. As they get older you can introduce new foods such as Herbs or Forage, Readigrass but just small portions. When they get to about 6 months their diet should consist of mainly hay (drop the Alfalfa now as it is high in Calcium and Protein), a small portion of pellets, say 1/2 bowlful between the 2, and whatever veg, herbs, etc you choose to give them. Carrots are very high in sugar so only a small piece now and then as a treat. Same applies to fruit. Rabbits always appear to be starving hungry but take no notice as you don't want them to get overweight. :D
 
Some people say unlimited pellets whilst they are babies and no veg, others say limited pellets and no veg, etc, it all seems to vary. My bunny is 13 weeks and he has unlimited pellets, a variety of different hays in unlimited quantity, some readigrass, some forage and I’ve began giving him leafy greens.


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