Silly bun!

[litheandgraphic]

This is kind of a silly, unimportant query that no one may have the answer to and/or may be esoteric to little Theodore.

When I feed Theodore his pellets in the evening or his leafy greens in the morning, I’ll sometimes leave the dish outside of the pen so I can clean it, etc. Theodore LOVVVVESSSS his food, and will jump at the chance to eat his leafy greens or pellets. But after a little while of munching, he’ll take a short break to hop around and explore. Sometimes, he’ll flop over somewhere for a moment. I’ll often have to leave the room for a moment (it’s completely bunny-proofed), and I’ll come back. When I come back, the instant he sees me, Theodore immediately goes back to his food and resumes eating. Theodore is a good eater and it’s not like he doesn’t eat when I’m not around, but it’s as though I’m cue sometimes for him to keep eating; like he was waiting for me to come back before eating in front of me??

Has anyone ever experienced this with their buns? Maybe he’s just so associated me with food that when he sees me he gets the immediate urge to go back to eating?

Like I said, he’s a great eater and doesn’t need me around to finish his meals, but I thought it was a funny little quirk.

[Tessie]

I would imagine it’s just a coincidence, but bunnies can be weird, so who knows!

[litheandgraphic]

Heheh, it probably is just a coincidence, it just keeps happening so I was wondering maybe there was a reason! xD

[Bam]

I recognize this with my bunny Yohio. He sort of eats “socially” – he likes his food a lot and he begs for food, but he “saves” food and starts to eat again when I come back into the bedroom (he lives in the bedroom). He may also eat in front of my mother when she comes to visit. It’s like eating is a kind of “friendliness”. It may be a “calming signal” (I don’t know the proper ethological term in English for this, so I just translated it straight up from Swedish – there is such a term though) – eating in front of sb may signal sth like “we’re kind of friendly, I’m sort of relaxed around you and don’t sense danger from you and you’re welcome to feel the same about me”. After all, a calmly feeding animal is not aggressive and not hostile and not terrified.

He may still well run away if I try to pet him while he’s eating, but most often he’s willing to be pet.

It’s little things like these that make rabbits so enormously interesting and lovable =)

Dogs may do similar things. When I was new to owning a dog a used to give my then dog a smoked pig’s ear when I left home, so she’d have sth to entertain herself with while I was gone. Almost every time she “saved” the ear and happily started eating it when I came home, almost like in celebration of my return =)
(Nowadays I don’t give dogs sizeable treats like that when I leave because they may choke on it when nobody’s home to pull it out. Yes – I do tend to worry a lot about Bad Stuff That May Happen To My Pets.)

[Eepster]

He’s probably worried that you are going to eat it all up before he gets a chance to finish.

[Cookie is #1]

Cookie does the same thing a lot. I always thought it was because he was afraid I was going to take it away or eat it up. But we’ll never know what is really going on in their head.

[Cookie is #1]

Cookie does the same thing a lot. I always thought it was because he was afraid I was going to take it away or eat it up. But we’ll never know what is really going on in their head.

[litheandgraphic]

Bam – That’s so interesting! It is exactly these kinds of things that intrigue me about rabbits so much. I like to think that this is what Theodore is doing (hva er det svenske ord? Jeg snakker norsk så kanskje jeg skal kjenne det?).

Haha, otherwise he is just worried I’ll eat it all up.

[khrisangel]

Lola does the same thing If she isnt near her bowl and I go even put my finger on it she will come eat. When I walk away she hops away. Its a fun game lol

[Author]

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