Calling all fat bunnies :-)

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BINKYBUNNY FORUMS

This topic has 8sd replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 9 years, 1 month ago by Bam.

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- 02/05/2017 at 8:59 PM
  vanessa
  Participant
  2212 posts
  So… who has fat bunnies? My little cutie – Guinivere – is fat. She was a chubby 5-month old when I got her. California/Rex mix. By 2 years of age, at 7.5 pounds, I thought that 6 pounds woudl be an ideal weight for her. She is bonded to Lancelot who is skinny, and I constantly try to help him gain weight. He is 4.5 pounds, up from 3.8 since he got sick, and I’ve seen him weigh 5 pounds and look really god. So I think he is almost there. Sicne he got sick – (EC), I have been free feeding him. Which means Guin now weighs a whopping 9.4 lbs. UNSAT little bunny! (I weigh them when I cut their nails). So I swapped out the food containers this evening, and they will both get 1/3 cup twice a day. I’d like to get Guin’s down to 1/4 cup a day of Sherwood Forest adult rabbit food, and then 1/8 cup a day of Sherwood Forest Professional rabbit food. I’ll give Lancelot whatever he wants to eat, but I can’t keep free-feeding them. Guin is a great hay eater. She eats her volume in hay, on top of the pellets. So I need to keep Lancelot’s weight up while helping Guin to lose weight.
  
  Any one with fat bunny stories?
- 02/05/2017 at 10:37 PM
  Azerane
  Moderator
  4691 posts
  Apollo and Luna were both overweight when I adopted them (their litter was chicken feeder pellets, so they’d been eating those). Apollo is the only one I would call obese though. He weighed 3.5kg a week after I brought him home, and now he regularly weighs around 3kg. So he lost 14% of his body weight after I put them on only 2 tablespoons of pellets a day each and leafy greens for lunch along with unlimited hay of course. He’s a much healthier and sleeker bunny now Luna also lost weight, but only about 200g.
- 02/06/2017 at 11:15 AM
  vanessa
  Participant
  2212 posts
  Wow that’s crazy high protein in checken feeder pellets!
- 02/06/2017 at 5:20 PM
  Nibbles
  Participant
  50 posts
  Nibbles is a chunky bunny. She was ‘slightly overweight’ at 3.5 kg when we adopted her from Humane Society and were told she’d quickly loose it once she bacame more active. That was June 2016 and she hasn’t lost any weight despite exercise She has a good diet, only gets ~1/8 cup of pellets (I hide them so she needs to work for them), unlimited hay and 3 small salads a day, and gets a lot of out of cage time that she actually runs around bit-but is still a big bun.
  
  She is now on an anti-seizure medication that usually causes weight gain and I’m hoping she doesn’t gain much more!
- 02/06/2017 at 9:28 PM
  vanessa
  Participant
  2212 posts
  There is something familiar about that – a while ago Guin was on 1/4 cup pellets a day, and I didn’t notice weight loss. Maybe because I wasn’t weiging her, but I’ve seen rabbits gain and lose weight, and I’ve never seen Guin lose weigh. She used to have the whole front yard to run around in, then she had the back half of my house. Sinc eLancelot got sick and I started free feeding him, she has had less exercise. They used to both use the rabbit door of their room and run around the back half of the house. During Lancelot’s illness, his already bad vision deteriorated and he stopped using the rabbit door. Guin stopped at the same time. She wanted to hang out with Lancelot instead. Only in the last few weeks has Guin showed interest in running around the house again. I think activity is obviousely important, but just as with humans, calories in vs calories out can outweigh the benefit of exercise. It doesn’t seem that Nibbles has anything out of order with her diet. Weird. I guess a chunky bunny is fine, as long as it doesn’t get really big. Guin is really big. I hope for you too that Nibbles doesn’t gain more weight!
  
  By the way – I used to have a black/white dutch pattern guineapig named nibles. When I was a little girl, I would always choose the sick guinea pigs from the pet store so I could help them. Nibbles was paralyzed. My mom told me that she needed more greens and less pellets, and she drove me around the neighborhood to pick dandelions because of their A and C content. She also got me a bottle of cod liver oil and a syringe, and I syringe fed cod liver oil and blended dandelion to Nibbles untill her paralysis cleared up. She made a full recovery 🙂
- 02/06/2017 at 11:34 PM
  Azerane
  Moderator
  4691 posts
  Posted By vanessa on 2/06/2017 9:28 PM
  
  By the way – I used to have a black/white dutch pattern guineapig named nibles. When I was a little girl, I would always choose the sick guinea pigs from the pet store so I could help them. Nibbles was paralyzed. My mom told me that she needed more greens and less pellets, and she drove me around the neighborhood to pick dandelions because of their A and C content. She also got me a bottle of cod liver oil and a syringe, and I syringe fed cod liver oil and blended dandelion to Nibbles untill her paralysis cleared up. She made a full recovery 🙂
  
  Your mum is awesome! What an amazing story.
- 02/07/2017 at 8:30 PM
  Nibbles
  Participant
  50 posts
  I love the story about your Nibbles!
  
  It sounds like Guin and my Nibbles are just big buns and I’m glad to hear Nibbles isn’t the only one! The vet has never been concerned about her weight, just mentioned that I need to make sure she get exercise regularly and push hay. I hope Lancelot continues to improve.
- 03/31/2017 at 11:47 AM
  vanessa
  Participant
  2212 posts
  So Guin has lost about a pound 🙂 I have been adding different types of hay. Where I used to feed her Timothy or Orchard, she now gets Timothy, Orchard, Timothy with tasty bits, CrazyTastyHay Orchard from BingaLing with clover, Oat/Barley mix hay, compressed timothy cubes, compressed timothy/alfalfa cubes. She likes the variety, and has been eating more hay than usual, less pellets, doesn’t always finish her 1/4 cup, still eats lots of veggies, and I’ve been picking her up and putting her in my room to stimulate her environment and encourage her to run around. Really happy 🙂 I’d like to see her get down to 6 or 6.5 lbs. Go Guin!
- 03/31/2017 at 11:51 AM
  Bam
  Moderator
  17033 posts
  Go Guin!!
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