Hey there.. long time no post. It’s been about 2 years… Anyway I have the most adorable bunny with the best personality (just like everyone else will say).
Sprinkles is just barely 3 years old and I take him to the vet every 6 months to check his teeth and see if they need trimming. It’s a veterinary college, so I get someone different every time we go. When we went in March, the vet asked us about his history with eating and we told them, we think he eats normally .We give him rabbit daily diet (timothy hay pellets with treats), hay, and greens. When he was little and got neutered, the stress shut his gut down and we had to take him to the bunny ER. Ever since, we’ve been very careful to make sure he’s always eating.. if we ever change his pellets, to a different brand (or even just one without treats), he won’t eat them. So the vet told us that he’s overweight. She was very sympathetic, but said that on a scale of 1 – 9, he’s an 8. He has arm pit fat, even. He doesn’t look that fat to me but.. she said there was a spot on his back that indicated he wasn’t able to reach it to clean properly. She recommended dialing down the pellets(turns out those are used to fatten them up!) and more greens and hay, and more activity. That day we bought a larger cage for when we aren’t home.. a dog crate, connected to his old cage which he has to hop through to get between. He uses the old cage as a bathroom now, and the new one to lounge and eat and stuff. We’ve been doing the best we can with it.. but we don’t want him to starve or to just stop eating, which we’re really afraid of.
Fast forward to last week, we went back to the vet. Same story, we let him run around when we’re home, greens, hay, and pellets, etc. This time the vet wouldn’t tell us his weight when I asked, just said “it’s about the same”. She was kind of rude, telling us we needed to make him run around, to cut down his food. She said we needed to catch him ever week or two and clean his butt because there were some mats there. And she told us to come back in 2 months, when all the other vets have told us every 6 months or a year.
I’m disinclined to listen to this second vet, but it could be just my hard headed-ness. How are we supposed to make him move more than he already does? Chasing the poor thing would just upset him. He already runs and hops around quite a bit.. but he also lounges quite a bit. I’ve tried playing with him different ways but everything I try he seems pretty disinterested in. We give him cardboard boxes which he tears up fantastically, and he’s strong because he can pick up my husband’s shoe and move it halfway across his body. I don’t really know what else to do?
Details: We give him greens from the list linked in info here, parsley, spinach, cilantro, sometimes kale, bok choy, etc. We give him a ramekin of the pellet mix every day, but he tips it over and seeks out the treats, then slowly eats the pellets over time. If he wants more with the treats, he makes a ruckus until we give it to him… I’ve started collecting some of the pellets and putting them back in the container so he has less access to them, but I don’t know… He also gets free access to timothy and oat hay. Often, he’s disinterested. He doesn’t like to be handled.. the only time we’ve held him after he was a baby was when he got his teeth cut last year and he was drugged. (excluding catching him for baths or the vet) He doesn’t let us brush him or anything. If my hands are empty he’ll let me pet around his face and ears and along the top of his back, though.
Mostly I’m asking what to do to get him moving more.. and if there are any suggestions on his diet (without starving him!)
Thanks a million!