Minimum amount of veggies and pellets

[hannandottie]

 Hi everyone, I have a question…

I’ve had a very difficult time getting my bunny, a Netherland dwarf, to eat enough hay. The vet checked her teeth and said they were fine, so I knew it wasn’t that. I switched to 2nd cut timothy mixed with oat and orchard grass, and she’s finally eating more of it, though still not as much as I’d like – I judge it by her poo, and days she eats a lot of hay – sorry to be graphic – it’s big and golden brown and I admire it as I clean her litterbox  and days she doesn’t eat as much, it’s smaller and a bit darker (she acts completely normal otherwise so I don’t think there’s something else going on).

I’ve been experimenting with her pellet and veggie amounts to see if I can encourage her to eat more hay. She weighs about 1.5 lbs. I cut her pellets (Oxbow) down to 1 tablespoon per day. I’d been feeding her 1/2 cup of greens in the morning and 1/4 cup in the afternoon. Now I think it would be better if she ate all her veggies in the morning with her pellets, so I started giving her 3/4 cup of veggies in the morning a few days ago and she’s definitely eating more hay in the afternoon and night, although I’m getting a lot of angry thumps when I walk into the room without her dinner 

I tried a couple days of only feeding her 1/2 cup of veggies in the morning. She ate more hay those days and her poo looked great, but I was worried I was starving her, or she wasn’t getting proper nutrition. I know the House Rabbit Society says 1 cup of greens per 2 lbs of body weight, but for her that seems like it’s too much. 

So I’m wondering if this is healthy for her, to only eat 1 TBSP of pellets and 1/2 cup of veggies in the morning and only hay the rest of the day.

Thanks in advance!

[Beka27]

I don’t think that’s enough. I have always recommended 2 cups of veggies per day minimum, regardless of weight.

I feed veggies in the morning and pellets at night. The are several hours during the day when the veggies are gone and pellets haven’t been served yet. And several hours again at night, when pellets are gone but it’s not veggie time yet.

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