Rescue Bun’s Diet

[Lauren]

Just acquired a second rescue bunny to hopefully bond with my current bun. Previous owners were giving him a large bowl of mixed type pellet feed daily (including sweetcorn!) with hay and occasional veggies. My bun has very limited pellets, loads of hay and salad twice a day. They are currently housed separately. What is the best way to get him onto a better diet? He’s not overweight but has obviously been getting way too many pellets. Planning on getting him to a vet for neutering asap so will have his teeth checked then in case any lack of hay has caused any problems. Any advice on how to transition his diet to a healthier one would be gratefully received!

[Azerane]

When I adopted my pair they were overweight from eating their litter which was chicken feed pellets. Obviously straight away they no longer had the ability to do that. And I restricted their pellets from day 1 to 2 tablespoons each per day. If you’re worried about dropping that amount too quickly, 1/4 -1/3 cup would be ok providing he’s not a tiny Nethie I think I started introducing greens after about 2 weeks once both of their poops had improved to how they should be. I didn’t want to introduce too many new things at once.

[Drea]

My latest rescue was given ONLY pellets and they weren’t even good pellets. She had tons of very high sugar treats and these nondescript pellets and not much hay. No veggies or greens at all. With my vet’s help we weaned her from bad pellets onto good ones and now we are weaning her off them entirely. I completely stopped all the nasty treats cold turkey and stared introducing greens slowly…took about 2-3 weeks before we got her to normal greens levels. Now she’s eating about a tablespoon of pellets per day and tons of hay and she’s on a regular diet of greens and gets treats like a bit of carrot or berry or apple, etc. she’s much healthier and happier. Vet likened her old diet to a human eating only twinkies and ho-hos ?

[Lauren]

Apologies in advance if this is long. So I changed my new buns diet, cutting his pellets way back and adding some better quality ones to the one he’s used to, adding in lots of hay and some fresh veggies. Had him neutered a week ago and he’s since stopped eating. Got metacam and cisipride from vet, they didn’t want to keep him in cos he seemed so stressed. Initially seemed to improve but then took a turn for the worse so is back on the medication. Vet said since he’s refusing to eat hay to free feed high fibre pellets along with vetcare plus digestive health formula as he may simply be not eating enough to keep his system moving. He’s already a very nervy bun, and has had the stress of a new home, going from being an outside to an inside rabbit, the neuter surgery, a change in diet, plus he’s aware of the presence of my other (female) rabbit. I think the stress of all these factors combined has made him so sick. Just looking for any suggestions of how to calm him or what to do. If he’s still bad tomorrow he’ll have to go back to the vet but am reluctant to inflict yet another stressor on him (my vet is an hour away). Please help, I got him thinking I was rescuing him from a bad lot in life and so far just feel like I’ve made him sick, terrified and possibly dying.

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