My young holland lop acts like he is starving

[heypancake]

Help! My holland is 4 months old, I let him free feed up until about 3 weeks ago, when I switched him to the reccomended 1/2c of pellets in the morning, and unlimited hay, in addition, I give him a very small amount of fresh fruit and veggies each day (maybe an 1/8 of a cup or less). He eats his hay, but doesn’t seem thrilled by it by any means. He eats most of the 1/2c in the morning, but not all. By afternoon, he seems interested in food and hungry, by evening he acts like he is starving, searching for food, and digging and the bag relentlessly if he has access to it. By the morning, he is practically attacking you for food before you can get it to him. I am worried that he is truly hungry and that I am not feeding him enough to satisfy him. I would not want to feel hungry all the time.

On another note, does anyone have a reccomendation for a good water bottle? I haven’t found one that he likes to drink out of and also doesn’t leak. I’ve resorted to giving him a bowl of water for the time being. Could it be that he is not drinking enough?

Thank you sincrerely for your help!

[kcomstoc]

I don’t like water bottles, bowls are great because they can get as much as they want….my holland lop is 3 years old and he always acts like he’s starving and but I don’t want to give him more….bunnies tend to get fat very easily so he doesn’t need anymore than I give him. You can try upping the veggies a little to see if that helps because they have more water in them

[Bam]

I agree that water-bowls generally are better for buns, but I have bottles for mine too, in case they should overturn their bowls.
Your bunny is still growing so he should have more food than an adult bun. To determine if he gets enough food I suggest you weigh him once a week and do a weight-curve. He mustn’t lose weight, he should gain weight since he’s still growing. I weigh my buns on a kitchen scales, in a plastic bowl.
A very hungry bun that is getting enough calories can have more leafy greens, leafy greens are low cal. You can feed him several times a day instead of just once or twice so he doesn’t get so terribly hungry.
That said, I’ve an adult min lop who always acts as he’s starving. He isn’t. I weigh him. He can fall over backwards in anticipation of food.

[kcomstoc]

Also I want to add I give my holland lop a cup of veggies not an 1/8…that seems like not a lot but I don’t remember how much I gave him when he was just a little guy *4 months*

[Bam]

Forgot to say, if you decide to increase his vegs, do it very slowly.

[vanessa]

My holland lop also acts like he is starving. When I got him, he didn’t eat hay, so I gave him veggies and free feed. Now that I have found a hay that he likes, I 1/2 cup pellets twice a day. Close to what he was eating. He would nock me over if he could, to get the pellets. But he is by no means starving. Even when I was free feeding him, if there was food in his bowl and I came in and topped it up, he would still try to knock me over to get to the food. Some bunnies are just little freaks. Weigh him regularly, and make sure he doens’t lose weight. My “starving” bunny has picked up weight since I got him.
My little guy won’t use a water bottle either. I use bowels for all my buns. My outdoor buns have a water bowl that hooks up to the garden hose, with a float. So it fills up as they drink, and I tip it over every day to wipe it out. But that way it stays full. My indoor buns drink up to 2 cups of water a day. With a water bottle, they leak more often then not, sometimes the drinking parts get stuck and the rabbit has to wrestle to get water out, and I think they drink less water that way. With the leaking, you also can’t tell ow much they are drinking/ So I prefer bowels.
My little guy buzzes when I come in, dances around my feet, nudges my feet, practically gets underneath my feet, nocks my hand out of the way thus spilling the scoop of pellets as I reach to put them in his food bowel, you name it. He always acts like it’s his first meal in days… Really cute.

[Eepster]

Some of it may be boredom and a need for foraging activity. In the wild, a bunny spends most of its waking hours foraging for food. For your bunny, getting all his nutritional needs met so quickly with so little effort makes him feel like he needs to put in more effort looking for food.

Edible toys are a great way to make your bunny feel like he’s put in the required effort. Willow balls are one of my bunny’s favorites. Sometimes I put a bit of carrot inside an empty toilet paper tube and then fill it up with hay so he has to get the carrot out.

Also, just spreading the pellets out might help. Give half in the morning and then half in the evening.

[vanessa]

Good point Eepster. I like that.

[vanessa]

Perhaps some bunnies have stronger foraging instincts than others.

[Author]

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