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The subject of intentional breeding or meat rabbits is prohibited. The answers provided on this board are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet.  It is your responsibility to assess the information being given and seek professional advice/second opinion from your veterinarian and/or qualified behaviorist.

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Forum DIET & CARE How much should he drink?

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    • BumiBunny
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        Hello everyone! Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving for those who celebrate!

         I have read a few forum posts on this site in regards to how much water your bun should be drinking, but I wanted to see if I should be concerned with Bumi’s drinking habits or not. First of all, he is acting completely normal, eating good, poo and pee all normal, and acts like a very happy little bun. (He’s a holland lop, and weighs maybe 3 pounds or less.. I can’t remember how much the vet told us.)

        For the last month or two, he started to drink practically his entire 16 oz bottle of water at night (I’ve noticed that it seems to happen between midnight to 7AM). I’ve read conflicting total amount of ounces healthy bunnies drink, some suggest it’s normal and some suggest that 16 oz would be high. He gets his daily salad around 6-7pm and then his 1/4 pellets at around 8-9pm. Before he started this drinking habit he wasn’t eating as much hay, so now that he does eat more hay, I was expecting his water intake to go up (but just not this much all at once). He doesn’t eat all of the hay at night, however, so I’m wondering if the pellets make him thirsty? I was also wondering if he does this because he is bored. We lock him in his cage at night for safety, but he has been allowed free range in his x-pen all day and now has access to free range of the room he’s kept when we are supervising him. There’s no other signs that I have noticed that would indicate he’s bored.

         Outside of this, he is very perfectly normal, and even a well behaved un-neutered “teenager.” We do have plans to get him fixed, but I’m not sure if that is relevant to his drinking habits. I’m just concerned that this might be an underlying problem but since he is acting normal, I’ve gone back and forth in my concern.


      • Bam
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          16 oz of water is a lot for a 3 lb bun. He should drink like 5-6 oz. (100 ml/kf). A bun that eats fresh greens should drink less. Is he wet on the inside of his thighs?


        • Bam
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            100 milliliters per kilogram rabbit. My phone drives me genuinely crazy this evening.


          • kmurphy
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              My holland lop also drinks a ton of water. It’s even higher when he eats hay. Some types of hay might have salt on it. The salt is used so that if the hay was wet at anytime it won’t mold or spoil. I’m not sure if this is the case with your hay but you can kind of test it by soaking the hay in a little water and seeing if there is salt left behind when the water evaporates. I don’t think the salt is a big deal but it would account for the increase in water intake when your bunny started eating more hay. With our lop we were just told he is a big drinker. Our apartment is a little warm and we notice on warmer days he definitely drinks more.

              Hope some of this helps. If you are still concerned I would recommend getting a blood panel run to see if there is any imbalances.


            • Beka27
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                His unneutered status shouldn’t have any bearing on his drinking habits, I don’t think (not that I’ve ever heard, at least.) It very well could be the increase in hay.

                What brand of pellets does he get and in what quantity? And what type of veggies?

                He gets both his veggies and pellets in the evening? Have you tried spreading them out to morning and night, with hay always available?


              • BumiBunny
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                  Thanks for the replies. Ironically enough as soon as I posted this he stopped drinking his entire bottle (but still over 10 ounces), but his consumption of water does happen just at night. He currently get’s 1/4 cup of pellets (oxbow essentials young rabbit) and Timothy 1st cut hay (carefresh brand currently). Now that Beka mentioned the feeding times, I think his water consumption did go up around the same time I stopped giving him pellets in morning. I’m going to try that and see if that reduces, or at least spreads out his water intake and then go from there.

                  I haven’t noticed him having wet thighs, but he doesn’t let us pick him up. We are going to be bringing him to the vets soon to get his nails trimmed so I will definitely bring this up to the vet.


                • Beka27
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                    It’s good to feed twice a day minimum. This way you can make sure that he’s eating every 12 hours and is exhibiting some level of excitement for food. If you feed and he doesn’t go to eat, that can indicate a health issue is starting.

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                Forum DIET & CARE How much should he drink?