Overweight Rex

[Sydneyfinch]

Hi, I would really appreciate some advice to help me slim down my Rex Bonsai in a healthy manner. She is quite overweight but I can’t seem to get the weight to shift! In the photo she is the large brown Rex on the right. Here is a little information on her diet and lifestyle. 

Diet: Our three rabbits have continuous access to hay (usually Wheaten but occasionally we buy a bale of Oaten hay if that is all that’s available) and Bonsai does seem to eat this continuously! She is allowed outside in the garden a couple of hours a day and eats a lot of grass. We also feed her a couple of cups worth of Kale/Celery/herbs/leafy greens a day and give some other snacks in much smaller amounts (cucumber, capsicums, fruit, carrot) a couple of times a week. She also gets a very small handful of pellets twice a day. 

I’m not sure how to change her diet to encourage weight loss, I wasn’t sure if it would be OK to decrease the portion size of her pellets, eventually removing them completely. 

Exercise:  For a couple hours on weekdays and most of the day on weekends she has access to run around our fairly large enclosed garden. After an initial run around (that doesn’t last long!) she spends most of this time sitting down or grazing on the grass. We try to encourage her to do a few laps of the garden but Bonsai’s pretty resistant to any exercise! Whilst we are home (mornings and evenings) she has access to run around the house, and though she explores a little she spends most of the time lying down or grooming the other rabbits. She is very friendly and it is easy to get her to move around by calling her over from opposite ends of the room but though I try to spend time playing with her in this manner I am not noticing it helping her weight loss at all. Her pen is about 1.5mx3m so even when limited to that area (whilst we are at work) she has a fair bit of space to move around. 

If anyone has any advice on things I could change or tips on how to help us shed some of her extra weight I would be really interested and grateful to hear about it! Thank you! 

 

[LittlePuffyTail]

I don’t know anything about wheat hay, whether it has more calories or not, but the suggested hay to feed are Timothy or Orchard.

Pellets are the most high calorie thing in a bunny diet. Most bunnies do well on a pellet-less (or very reduced) diet if they are given a good variety of greens and good quality hay. My two (about 4 and 5 lb buns) only get a little over a TBSP of pellets per day. I reduced them due to GI problems.

Are the pellets you’re feeding Timothy pellets?

Has she been to the vet recently for a check-up?

[Sydneyfinch]

Thanks, I think that wheaton hay has slightly more calories than Timothy, it’s just hard to find good quality bails of Timothy or Orchard hay locally. But I’ll have another look and track down a bale of Timothy to see if that helps.

We were told that the pellets we use are Timothy based but I think we may switch to something like Oxbow Adult Rabbit Food pellets as they include more information in the labelling so we can be sure. I think we will also try reducing the portion size further.

She’s been to the vet a few times recently to check up on a scratch to the eye and her health otherwise is good. The vet didn’t seem overly concerned about her weight but agreed she could do with loosing a bit of it.

I’ll see how switching to a less calorific hay and reducing the pellet size go’s.

Thank you

[drwil]

You can reduce rabbits using greens alone plus Timothy and orchard grass hay. No carrots or fruit.

My rabbits lost about 2 pounds using this method.

If you want to use pellets use Timothy not alfalfa pellets

[Bam]

Hay isn’t uniform, the nutritional value varies according to when it’s been harvested. Here’s a chart: http://bunniesinneed.net/hay-nutritional-value-chart/

But generally, hay isn’t the problem when a bunny is overweight. Pellets and treats are the main culprits. So cutting back on pellets I think would be the best thing for you to try. You don’t have to cut pellets all out at once, just reduce. If she’s an adult and she gets good quality hay (to get as broad a range of micro-nutrients as possible you can vary the types of hay you feed) + a variety of fresh greens, she won’t get malnourished.

[Azerane]

I’m inclined to think it could be the hay. Does your wheaten hay have seed heads and does she eat them? I know that oaten hay in particular can make a rabbit chubby, especially since it tends to have quite a number of seed heads and bunnies just love oaten seeds, too many of those and it quickly packs on the weight. Any time I bought oaten hay for Bandit, if I didn’t remove all the seed heads, they would be the first thing he would eat. So it really depends what your wheaten hay is like, if it’s seedy or not and if your rex is eating those seeds, otherwise the hay strands themselves don’t cause weight gain.

[Sydneyfinch]

Thanks everyone, I’ve cut out any fruit and veg other than leafy greens. I don’t use alfalfa pellets so will keep feeding them all some pellets but make sure I reduce Bonsai’s quantity further.

Azerane, our wheaten hay does have seed heads and she loves them (although this doesn’t stop her from eating the hay strands). I picked out the seed heads for awhile but as our supplier now only has oaten hay (which has hardly any seed heads) that isn’t as big an issue as it used to be. I’ll continue picking out any seed heads in whatever hay we get, I probably wasn’t persistent enough with that in the past.

Thanks again

[Bam]

My bunny Bam was fat, I reduced pellets, cut out treats and fed lots of fresh forgage. (And he had hay, plain timothy). He lost about 100 grams/month. I weighed him every week and wrote down the weight. You don’t want to make a bun loose weight too fast, I quote from this House Rabbit Society-article: http://rabbit.org/overweight-and-underweight-rabbits/

“If an obese rabbit is put on an inappropriate diet and loses weight too rapidly, the rabbit can become ill very quickly and be at risk for hepatic lipidosis. In this condition, fat cells replace liver cells, resulting in a severely damaged liver. If a rabbit becomes anorexic (loses his appetite) for any reason, the condition should be considered an emergency and treated before hepatic lipidosis becomes a threat.”

It sounds scary, but I thought I’d mention it since it’s from the HRS so it’s not just some random Internet-myth.

[Sydneyfinch]

Thanks, that’s definitely something to be aware of and I appreciate you flagging it. Weighing her regularly is a great way to check that she isn’t losing weight too fast. I’m hoping that by being really strict with not giving treats (we probably both give more than we think) and cutting pellets we will see a difference.

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