Dry food

Hi,

I have to admit when I first got Binky being an uneducated bunny mum ... he mainly was on dry food.... Russell Rabbits carrot and leek... the vet said to give him as much greens as possible in their diet...
By the time we got Pumpkin I was much more educated and he was started off on greens and dry.

5 yrs later Binky still is the dry food lover and Pumpkin likes it but isnt to bothered....

My boys r pigs and well built...... Binky will eat most of his dry food dinner quickly , his bowl becomes empty....

My daughter argues that his bowl should always have food in it.... I argue it shouldnt, otherwise he will become fat and if he runs out of food he can have greens only until later... we dont know who is right...
I have asked the vet and she says its a balance...

How much dry food do you give your bun and how many times a day ?

Dawn

Tigger is on Supreme Science pellets. I give her a quarter cup measurement for breakfast and she gobbles them up, it's like she hasn't been fed before!
I then give a tiny handful sometimes for rewards when playing games.

It depends on the time of year. Now until about Sept/Oct I give 1 eggcup full of SS, which is a few in the morning, and the rest i the evening. He gets shed load of grass, leaves, herbs, and wild food for the next few months.
Come autumn/winter, I double the pellets and increase veggies, as theres no wild food around. Outdoor buns (I think) should have a few more in the wintertime.

The thing with dried food is that it should be thought of as supplement to the diet, not a staple part. If they miss out a day or two every now n then, it won't do any harm.

Daisy gets a single layer of Burgess Excell in the bottom of a bowl twice a day. (very few) Once they are gone they are gone.

Like Jay said these are complementary, and not staple, so really they are a treat.

They should be eating hay, hay, hay and more hay - oh and did I mention hay??? It should ideally be 80% of their diet.

Buns are selective feeders so they are going to go for the tastiest, whether it is good for them or not. So if there is unlimited dried, thats what they will eat. If the greens and dried have run out, then they have hay to snack on. Buns who dont eat enough hay can have dental and/or digestive problems.

K x

Mine get a small handful each in the morning, and they have a higher protein pellet October-March, so same quantity but packing more nutrients to get them through the winter.

For most rabbits, excepting those who are ill/elderly and have difficulty maintaining their weight, pellets are not a necessary part of a balanced diet.

Bruce and Josephine don't get dried food as a part of their regular diet. Their main food is vegies in the morning, and fresh hay both in the morning and evening.

They only get dried food (oxbow pellets) as a treat. They will sometimes go months without it. When I give it to Bruce, because he's fat, he only gets three pellets, poor starving boy.

Mine are inside, btw, so they don't need extra reserves to keep warm in the winter!

This has been a very interesting thread thank you for your comments it is clear my two are still eating to much dried food along with all their veggies and hay !

I think I will put them on a diet ... your right if its put in front of them they will eat it...

Dawn

Both mine get a small handful of SS in the morning and veg in the evening.Hay is topped up through the day and it isn't usually to see them eating hay straight after their meals.

There was an interesting thread put up about Rabbit Digestion in another thread. In it it said that as a rule of thumb, a rabbit should get 25g (1 oz) of pellets for every kilo (2 lb) of weight.

My buns generally get half a mug of pellets in the morning and no more. Felix weighs about 2.5k (5 lb) and Wolfie is just under 2k (4 lb). That means they should be getting 125g of pellets a day.

At their last check, which was a couple of weeks ago, the vet complimented me on having two rabbits with healthy weights and said that the vast majority of rabbits coming into the surgery were overweight and that often this was a contributory factor towards their ill health.

Your daughter is wrong. You give your buns the requisite amount of pellets and then no more. You provide them with as much good quality (not from P@H - as it is often dry and dusty) hay as they wish and some green veg (I feed this at bedtime as a bribe to go to bed). If they are hungry, they will eat hay. Rabbits are ALWAYS hungry and are good at making you feel like they are starving to death. They are incredibly greedy and very food-centric.

NickieM wrote:There was an interesting thread put up about Rabbit Digestion in another thread. In it it said that as a rule of thumb, a rabbit should get 25g (1 oz) of pellets for every kilo (2 lb) of weight.

My buns generally get half a mug of pellets in the morning and no more. Felix weighs about 2.5k (5 lb) and Wolfie is just under 2k (4 lb). That means they should be getting 125g of pellets a day.

At their last check, which was a couple of weeks ago, the vet complimented me on having two rabbits with healthy weights and said that the vast majority of rabbits coming into the surgery were overweight and that often this was a contributory factor towards their ill health.

Your daughter is wrong. You give your buns the requisite amount of pellets and then no more. You provide them with as much good quality (not from P@H - as it is often dry and dusty) hay as they wish and some green veg (I feed this at bedtime as a bribe to go to bed). If they are hungry, they will eat hay. Rabbits are ALWAYS hungry and are good at making you feel like they are starving to death. They are incredibly greedy and very food-centric.

thanks for your comments.... I think one of the problems is even with their dried food they will only pick out the good bits! .. Binky today had some dry this morning and then spent all day in the garden....and guess what tonight he has diarrhoea .. so its back on a little of the hard stuff/hay to settle his stomach .. this has always been my problem with Binky, we cant get the balance right and I dont want to stop him from running freely around the garden... He is a large bunny and weighs 11lb. I will keep an eye on the portion sizes now .. he could do with losing a few pound.

Dawn

There are two types of dry food: muesli (with lots of bits) and extruded pellets (which are all the same). If you feed your bunny muesli food, they do tend to become selective feeders and will pick out the bits they like and leave the bits that are probably best for them. The way to combat this is to change them over onto pellets. That way they can't be selective.

However, with rabbits that has to be done very carefully so you don't disrupt their gut.

Here is the process:

Day 1 Add 10% of the new food into 90% of their old food
Day 2 Add 10%
Day 3 Add 20% of the new food into 80% of their old food
Day 4
Day 5 Add 30% etc.

By Day 10 they will be fully over to their new food regime. They will probably sulk, but you just keep feeding and they will be OK.

Hi Nickie...

Binky was started off with pellets and they really upset his stomach, they still do now ...I tried different types of pellets , mixed etc.... none seemed to work.

He is very emotional ..which doesnt help ... if the wind blows the wrong way he gets an upset stomach or goes gastric , its always been a battle.

It took us ages to find a dried food that suited him... which is the carrot and leak , like you said he picks bits out..mainly leak pieces and a couple of others.. but some bits are fattening so I am trying to ween him off onto dried peas, which seems to be working except when he eats to much grass !

Its a constant battle.... to be honest Im just glad when he is eating. Pumpkin on the other hand seems to have stomach made of iron .... except just to make my life difficult he doesnt like dried peas !

Dawn

Dawn, do you feed Binky vegetables and hay? If you do, and he eats them happily, I might suggest stopping the dried mix and only use it when he is on the verge of stasis (i.e. is refusing to eat / looks sick). Without the dried food it is easier to make sure he doesn't put on any weight as well.

NSD wrote:Dawn, do you feed Binky vegetables and hay? If you do, and he eats them happily, I might suggest stopping the dried mix and only use it when he is on the verge of stasis (i.e. is refusing to eat / looks sick). Without the dried food it is easier to make sure he doesn't put on any weight as well.

Hi,

It seems any vegatable or fruit can cause him to have an upset stomach... He is best on 1 leaf of greens a day or curly kale , grass and hay .. I have experimented with different veg , most seem to give him diarrhoea


The worse veg for him is carrots even a tiny bit and watercress...

Dawn