My rabbits don’t seem to want to exercise

[Hannah]

Hi,

I have two mixed breed (Dutch and English) house rabbits, they are neutered male and female and are almost 2 years old. They seem healthy, they eat well, groom themselves and each other, have lots of things in and out of their cage to chew on and seem to enjoy running around their cage. Every day when I get home from work I open their cage so they can run around the house but go back into their cage whenever they want. The problem is they won’t come out of their cage. The male (Tim) generally leaves the cage after a while and runs, hops and skips around my house but the female (Daisy) seems happy just to sit in the corner of the cage. Neither of them mind me picking them up and if I pick up daisy and then place her in the house she’ll have a nice run around with Tim but after 10 or so minutes will get bored and go back in the cage.

This wouldn’t bother me so much but Daisy is starting to put on weight, she eats what tim (who is smaller and not at all overweight) eats (a small amount of pellets, hay and fresh veg).

Do any of you have any suggestions on how to encourage exercise/sort out the growing size of Daisy?
Thanks!

[Bam]

I have a rather lazy bunny or how to describe him, and he put on too much weight so my vet told me he was fat (embarrassing!) I got him back to a good weight by replacing all treats and most of his pellets with greens, leafy, low cal greens. Luckily it was spring, so fresh greens of good quality was easily available. I increased the amount slowly so as not to cause tummy upset. I weighed him once a week to keep track of his weight-loss and to make sure there really was weight-loss.

As I said, he’s a pretty lazy boy but he does like to run through his tunnel. He also has an activity ball that he chases, I put his regular, healthy pellets in it, but for a food-monster like Bam, pellets are as good as any treat. Maybe you could let your girl forage for her food more, like scatter it on the floor so she has to go and find it herself instead of getting it served in the cage. I don’t know if that would work with two buns sharing the same space, though, my Bam lives alone so no other bun steals his food if I spread it around.

[Michaela]

Hi Hannah

I have had a mini lop, Marla, for 2 years and she was young when we got her (we think!) so possibly the same age as your buns.

Marla is the same as your female, it seems! She seems perfectly happy to stay in her hutch all day, until we move her out to exercise, even though the door is open and she is free to roam if she wants to. She has quite soft fur on her feet (paws?) and we think this may be what part of the problem is! Our floors downstairs, where she lives, are wood/laminate and she slides around on them. Ice skating bun!

We think this makes it difficult for her and that is why she prefers it in her hutch, because if we put her outside, she retreats to a corner usually, unless we give her some mats/rugs and she then hops around quite happily!

Hope you figure it out and she’s binkying around in the near future.

Michaela + Marla 

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