He has a standard sized ceramic feeding bowl for rabbits with two small helpings per day of 3 – 4 oz each. He has a nutritionally balanced pellet called Excel for Dwarf Rabbits. But he is a 5 kilo rabbit with the unmistakable dwarf ears and face. and he has blue-ish short fur with a mjor moult once a year (sometimes twice). I have to brush him daily for at least ten days, every day. The amout of fur he shed’s would go in his mouth if I didn’t brush him and cause real trouble.
I don’t know what he’s crossed with and I was advised by the pet shop I got him from to keep him on the dwarf diet. I wonder if I was given bad advice.
Heres my list of tried it without success:
I’ve tried giving less pellets in case he was fillling up on them becoming too full for his hay. Result: Ignored hay / ate bedding straw
I’ve tried giving the two portions separately – one morn / one eve. with only hay in between. Result: Ate bedding Straw
I’ve also tried the both versions with no access to bedding straw. Result: He literally ripped his best toy to bits in anger and preferred to starve himself. He did that for over 12 hours before I gave in and gave him his pellets back as I was so worried.
Another version was substituting the bedding straw completely with timothy / meadow hay + his bowl of hay + a hay rack …. he enjoyed tossing all the hay out of the bowl and pulling the rack down. His nice pile of food became one mouthful and then a bed. Result: Grumpy, tired and angry from hunger.
Yes … he does eat the bedding straw – which is barley straw. I worry about him doing it but luckily he’s litter trained and I do a daily maintenance as well as a full clean once a week so he doesn’t eat soiled bedding. He’s never been interested in chew blocks / treats either. In fact his favourite past time is mating with his toy rabbit, flicking his towelly out from his back legs and jumping about like a loony.
The spur that was removed was very small and only on one tooth. He totally refused all food and meds then for nearly 5 days post op. I it poss the vets didn’t do the dental properly. I wasn’t expecting to see this again for a long while but it’s only been almost a year to the day. Last week in June last year.
I am from the UK. We don’t get any choice of what ‘cut’ of the hay is available as far as I know. Here it’s mass produced and packaged with only a vague description labelled meadow hay / timothy hay etc. I’ll try to see if I can find this ‘soft timothy’. You give me an idea, I haven’t tried local rabbit breeders … perhaps they source their feed from better place that I don’t know about.
I’m convinced that it’s either him being a stubborn old buffoon or it’s something in the way I’m feeding / what I’m feeding that I’m sure I could put right if only I can figure it out. About the same time he packed in the hay – he also stopped passing the little edible poops rabbit make. I haven’t seen those in years… !?