New bun won’t eat pellets or hay..

[Alicia]

I haven’t been here in a long long time! I used to be TuckerBunz but I forgot all my info for that and made a new one   Anyway, we’ve since acquired a new bunny from and we don’t really know too much about him..we know he’s a boy because we flipped him over and that’s VERY evident!  Anyway, he doesn’t like his pellets..we tried both the kind that we feed Tucker and Drue and we also bought some of the kind that the petstore was feeding him (yes he’s from a petstore but if you saw the little cage he was in you’d know it was actually a rescue!!!) and he just doesn’t want anything to do with pellets at all.  He also doesn’t seem to like hay..but they had only a few random pieces of hay in his cage at the store so I don’t know if he realizes that he’s supposed to eat hay.  He does eat veggies very willingly but I have no idea how old he is so I’m hesitant to feed him very much.  I’ve been giving him a leaf of romaine each day and then just keep pushing the pellets and hay..and just no luck.  He’ll take a bite or two of hay but that’s really it.  Will he be ok if I just keep offering the pellets and hay and maybe up his veggie intake?  The other day I also offered him a piece of cilantro which he LOVED..I’m just worried to give him too much because I don’t know too much about him or what he’s used to and that pet store was clueless about rabbits….

[Sarita]

I would feed him more vegetables then. I would keep trying to offer him hay as well. You definitely want to encourage him to eat hay.

[Monkeybun]

Maybe try another kind of hay, see if a different kind smells tastier to him

[RabbitPam]

I agree. It may be time to try sampling small quantities of different hays. Timothy is best, but Oat or Orchard Grass might appeal to him. Just don’t get him on alfalfa, which will pack on the pounds.

What pellets do you give him? The Oxbow Bunny Basics T is a ground Timothy Hay pellet that’s got good nutrition levels, so you could try those since it’s getting a form of hay into him.

[jerseygirl]

Hi Alicia, welcome back! Nice to hear from you, must know more how Tucker ansd Drue are going….and now a newbie – congratulations! You wouldn’t believe it – 2 days ago I told a new member about your bird called dog-dog! Lol.
Do you know what the petstore was feeding the rabbit? Guinea pig pellets maybe? I can’t imagine they only fed veggies though it’d be nice for them. Maybe you need to feed him what he was getting then transistion him onto something better? How long have you had the new boy?  Do you think he was at the store long?  Been weaned long?

Oh, if you email Binky Bunny, she may be able to help you access your old account.  They’re updating profiles at the moment so there’s some changes happening.

[Alicia]

They were feeding him “bunny treat mix” which is like pellets mixed with crunchy treats…I went and bought some of that and tried giving him it, he doesn’t want it.  I doubt they gave him any veggies at all, they really didn’t seem that with it about what bunnies need….  I’ve tried both timothy and I think it’s orchard hay..no go on any of it..he doesn’t seem to know what to do with it!  Now, he might be eating tiny bits of pellets that I’m just not seeing, maybe at night?  I’ll try putting in a very small measured amount and see if there is a change in the morning.  I feed the kaytee timothy pellets, forget exactly what they are called.  I will try tiny amounts of hay too, I suppose it’s possible that he is eating it but only in small amounts, he’s very tiny…I don’t think he’s a baby either because they said they were getting ready to “get rid of him” because he was getting too old….and I had seen him in there before a few months ago but back then he was in with a few other bunnies and he was the last one left so they moved him into this tiny little wooden cage/box thing that I think is normally kept for small birds or rats or something..I don’t know..so sad  Anyway, now he’s home and he’s just not used to the freedom I think..he has a 2X3 pen and he just doesn’t know what to do..except jump out!  He jumped out the first night and we couldn’t find him..he went into my daughter’s room (where the other bunnies are) and camped out under her bed..so now he has a roof on his pen LOL  I’ll have to get pictures up..he is really TINY..I’ll weigh him tomorrow too..I’m going to estimate 1-2 lbs….so I guess it could be understandable that he’d only eat small amounts right??  I mean I’m used to Drue which OMG there is no amount of hay or pellets too big for him LOL and Tucker who eats her fair share…

 

Tucker and Drue are doing really well..they still live separately though, they get along GREAT with a divider between them but Tucker is a bit of a b**** if she gets in with Drue, and Drue is like “whatever” about her, and they seem happy with the divider so I just haven’t messed with them…they love to lay side by side..as long as that bar is there!   They are both doing really well though   We had to move them upstairs into my daughter’s room though  so that was sad, but we needed the space down here for me to have an office since I work from home….but we all spend a lot of time up there and they come visit us, and they seem quite happy up there

[Alicia]

Oh and that’s funny about Dog-Dog, when we brought Thumper home we were thinking of names and Lucas said he wanted to name him lizard, and we were like “yea I don’t think so…” and Mike was like “why not we have Dog-Dog the bird!” hahah…luckily we landed on Thumper though…even though they call him Flumper

[Alicia]

Pictures of Thumper, any idea how I could tell how old he is by looking at him?  I can tell you for sure that his genitalia has matured…..whoooo boy..he’s got some stuff going on under there, that’s for sure!

  Hehe I love this picture of him :-P  Oh and since finding out he’s a boy my sons have made sure that I removed the princess blanket and he now has a more boy appropriate surroundings…

 

  “What’s that on your necklace mom?  Oh it’s a me!”

[Beka27]

Welcome back! I have to run to work but I shall respond more later! I was just asking about you not too long ago, I had no clue where you had run off to! Congrats on new addition! If he eats veggies, I would definitely feed him more veggies. If his boy parts are matured, he’s probably at least 3-4 months, but really baby bunnies can eat veggies as young as 6-8 weeks. As long as you introduce them one at a time, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be getting the recommended 2 cups per day.

[Alicia]

Ok well so far romaine and cilantro seem to be doing well, no poopy butt or anything…

Speaking of poop..his poops are REALLY tiny..but he’s really tiny..so does that sound ok then?  I don’t know how small a bunny that size’s poops should be, Tucker’s the smallest rabbit I’ve EVER had and hers are like the size of a pea and then we have Drue who has cocoa puff sized ones…Thumper’s are like the size of a dried pea….pretty tiny.

I found out last night that he likes his water in a bowl better then in the bottle.  I had been giving him a bottle because that’s what the store did but I didn’t really see the level going down much so I put in a bowl of water and came back a few hours later and it was almost all gone.  I felt around the cage because I thought sure he must have dumped it somewhere but everything was dry..he actually drank almost a whole bowl of water!  So, I’m thinking he hadn’t been drinking from the bottle at all for the last few days.

[Alicia]

We have a hay winner!  What I thought was Orchard Grass was actually Bermuda Grass, went out to Petsmart this morning and got some Orchard Grass..he is eating it!  I also got some Timothy with Mint..but he didn’t seem so thrilled with that..I got that one mainly for Tucker anyway since Mint is her favorite herb   I also got him a willow ball because he had a “mega willow bundle” and the sticks were too thick for him..so I gave Tucker the bundle since there is no stick too thick for her and I bought him and Drue each a willow ball to munch on.  He also DID eat a little bit of pellets last night..mainly picking out the crunchy “treats” that is in that mix.  But, he is starting to come around and eat more and he’s now peeing a lot more too which makes me happy

 

I’ve also noticed that he’s starting to stick to a corner for his litter box..right now I have one of those under bed storage things in his cage as a litter area because he was missing the boxes and peeing and pooping all over the place..but now it seems to all be in the one far corner so I think if I pick up a bigger litter box this weekend (he had a little one since he was smaller..) then I might be able to take out the under bed storage drawer and put in a big litter pan for him, which will make his cage a lot more open..although he’s seeming to like the fact that he has to jump up and over the edge of the drawer to get anywhere lol little obstacle course for him..

[jerseygirl]

…I don’t think he’s a baby either because they said they were getting ready to “get rid of him” because he was getting too old….

I shudder to think what that meant. ^

I wonder if he was having a gut slowdown? Now he’s drunk a heap of water maybe it got things moving? You may have dodged a bullet. Worth trying all previous foods and see if his poops change too.

Flumper – lol ! Too cute. I love how kids do this! (Off topic – When my sister was pregnant with her 3rd, her 2yr old daughter would tell people she was getting a “little focker”. This from a swear-free household too! Her neighbour across the road had a baby boy named Brock and my neice had decided she was getting a brother too – so “Brock” morphed into “focker” somehow…… She was right, she got a little brother.

‘Flumper’ looks like a lion head. Love, love the grey bunnies.

[Alicia]

Yea I shuddered at the thought of what that could mean too! I think that’s why Mike didn’t fight me on getting another bunny when normally I’m sure he’d be like “nooooo”

And I think it might have been a gut slow down issue too, because now I really have no issues with his eating at all, he’s eating hay, eating his pellets and veggies and he’s drinking water well too.  He’s also now going in his litter box where before it was just dried up little dried up looking poops and he was doing that all over the place.  So whew!  Luckily he got through that ok!

He is a lionhead, I think it’s called a single maned?  He just has the mane around the face and then he has a little bit of a skirt by his back legs, it’s so cute! 

[Author]

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