How do I make my fat rabbit less fat, and STAY that way?

Hi everyone

So we all went to the horror that is the vet today. 6 months ago, Bruce was 3.96 kilos - down from his previous weight of 4.4, 4.5 kilos. I was chuffed. FINALLY, I had managed to get him to lose weight. So i returned him to what I thought was a "maintenance" diet.

Turns out, maintenance was the wrong word. He's back at 4.39kilos

So I have a few questions:

1) Last time I got him to lose weight, I would have one or two days a week where he would get nothing except hay. The other days he would have vegies - parsely etc - to share with Josephine. Is this healthy?

2) How do I get him to maintain the weight? Since then I have either been feeding them a bunch of parsely or a small handful of pellets (the healthy brand, imported especially from USA) each morning. Clearly this means he has put on weight - but how do I strike the balance between losing weight (above) and maintaining it?

One problem I struggle with is that Josephine is a healthy / slightly skinny weight for her size - if she looses weight, it will be dangerous, and I don't have time in the mornings to sit and monitor how much of the parsely/pellets each bun eats.

Thank you in advance.

The hay only day is a good idea, I did that with Berts and it worked. I'd keeo the pellets down to an absolute minimum, and treat them as a supplement rather than a staple.

It's tricky though with them sharing the food, not dealt with that one before. Could you put Bruce in a seperate area and give him his own bowl just at feed times? I'm sure someone else will be able to give you better advice, I think it's quite common

How much exercise does he get? Like us, loosing weight is a mix of diet and exercise. When I clicker trained Berts to do his assault course etc, the weight started shifting. Hope that's some help

Thanks Jay. I remember reading about Bertie's clicker training - how many hours per day did you spend with him? Summer holidays start in five weeks, so I will have some spare time and I might give it a try. Although sadly bruce is a bun of little brain, so it might not work as well!

They get let outside for about 30 mins each day and have their room all day, which is approx 5 x 3 metres.

It's just so frustrating when I got him back down to a healthy weight and it all just piled on again! And then I have Josephine where no matter how many treats and junk food I give her, she stays skinny She's much more sedentary than him.

It was more in 20 minute bursts, say 4 or 5 a day. The thing with that was that once Bertie realised what he could do, he started to do more of his own choosing, so it really worked well for him.

I would get them outside a bit more TBH, and if you have the inclinetion, get him running around a bit more, play chase etc too

Ah this is a good post - I was actually going to make a similar post about my two, but Ill just follow this one!

My problem is Lani is overweight and Kuja under, I suspect this is simply due to Lani eating more than her fair share. I sometimes split them at feeding times, but when I do that, Kuja takes *forever* to eat his half since he isn't racing Lani.

Lani has always been a big girl and keeping her weight down when she was a lone bun was hard enough, but this is harder!

(And she gets plenty excersize!)

I have a similar problem with Peggy and Sue. Sue only has half a kidney working and has lost a lot of weight so she is getting food that is high in moisture and calories. The vet has agreed with me that the more she eats, the better, given her prognosis is so poor.

Peggy, on the other hand, is becoming quite chunky. I work long hours so can't watch them eating - and Sue nibbles all day, rather than eating all the 'yummy' stuff straight away. I am not sure Sue would eat if I separated them when I feed them as they have such a close bond. One will often groom the other while they are eating - it's so sweet.

The good thing is that they both love fresh grass and dandelion leaves and that is the first food they go to eat. They are good hay eaters as well. Part of Peggy's chubbiness is probably her winter coat as he fur is quite long and she has a mane.