Willow's Weight Loss Blog

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BSAR

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Ok well I have decided to start a blog about my fat Netherland Dwarf! lol. Her name is Willow. Now when I got Willow she was very overweight, but I think that she came down a bit because at county fair last year she was able to show in type.

So this blog is going to be all about her and her weight loss program she is on.

As you may know, we went to a show last weekend. When there we weighed Willow before her turn on the table. She weighed an astonished 2 1/2 pounds overweight!! I was completely shocked! Now this is also because she was being fed a lot when we thought she was preggo. Whenever I am at shows and looking at other ND's it is so easy to tell that Willow is almost three times the size of a regular ND. And it just breaks my heart to see her bigger than them. I want her to be average size.

So here are a few pictures of Willow when she was fat. (Now I just started Willow on this so she is still pretty chunky.)

TCF07beforefairtoo033.jpg
This was at county fair and Willow was actually pretty good size, because she went into the type class and did great!

RabbitHoppingmore019.jpg
Here is another one of Willow, either a while before or after fair. She is still pretty good looking in this pic, although it is very easy to tell that she is too big for a ND.

Okay so after the show last Saturday I knew it was time for Willow to go on the " no pellets diet" And I was amazed today when I picked Willow up! I can actually fit my hands around her stomach a whole lot more! And I can see her chin, she has a dewlap and it NEEDS to go away. She doesn't get DQd for it though, I think mostly it is justreally extra skin and fur and well you know. So I am very proud of Willow, she has been doing such a great job eating only hay and a small amount of pellets like once every couple of days. I would like to say she has only been on this diet for FOUR days and the results are already incredible! I will be doing this with my other doe Autumn as well because she is on the plump side as well.

I will be posting more pictures of Willow's progress.

Amanda and Willow
 
This is a really good idea for a blog for Wii!


Go Go Wii!!

:pinkbouce::pinkelepht::bouquet:

We are all cheering for you! I hope Wii looses the weight she needs to!

Love,

FSR Buns and Moi!


 
I had a similar problem with my Wildfire. She was a mini rex and when she went to the vet to get spayed, she was about 2.5 pounds over weight. I was shocked as well, because I thought she was okay, but she was getting fed too much from having babies and such as well.

I moved her to a 12% protien pellet (with the proper time transition to not upset her tummy) and at the same time I started measuring her food so I could start restricting her pellets. I slowly cut her down to a bit under 1/4 a cup food a day. I also upped her hay and veggies.

The vet told me to take it slow with weight loss. If a rabbit loses weight too fast, it can cause big problems with their liver. Because of the way rabbits metabolise fat, it can cause fatty liver disease if they lose weight too quickly.

Make sure your little girl is not losing weight too quickly. Weigh her once a week or more to track her progress. You don't want her to lose much more than 1/2 pound a month.

I think your doing a great job by getting her on a diet. Just monitor her to make sure she's not losing too quickly. You could also try giving her a variety of hay, more leafy greens and a controled low protien pellet ration.

--Dawn
 
I'm wondering if she might not have the dwarfing gene also. I think the odds are 1 in 4 that Netherland Dwarves will not have the dwarfing gene - therefore they will be larger. I know my two were "non-show" quality because they were "BUB"s (Big Ugly Bucks)....and you can have BUDs too (big ugly does). This is not to say that the rabbit is big and ugly - it is "slang" for the fact the rabbit doesn't have the dwarfing gene....at least according to the breeder I bought my Nethies from.

So I'm not really upset that Tio is larger than show size Netherlands....'cause he doesn't have the genes to be a dwarf!

Peg
 
I agree with Peg - It may not be healthy for Willow to lose 1/2 of her body weightand be starved to show weight. She looks like she has a larger, longer body type that is not meant to be 2 1/2 lbs. (Although she certainly does need to slim down a little.)

I judged a fair show last year where a few of the emaciated rabbits were owned by the same exhibitor. I questioned the mother about the rabbits, and she said that the judge had told them the year before that the rabbits were too heavy. The rabbits were so overweight that they had to be starved to get them down to a showable weight range - however, they were nothing but skin and bones! A rabbit that is too thin will not place well, and some rabbits do not have the bone structure to fit within the weight range for their breed.

When dieting - changes should be make slowly, and pellets should not be completely removed from the diet because they provide very important nutrients.

At therate she is loosing weight, important minerals are being drained from her body, and she is also prone to electrolyte imbalance that could result in a heart attack. Liver damage or other organ failure is also possible as her body gears down into starvation mode in an attempt to conserve calories.

Please stop starving her - fast weight loss in just as dangerous in rabbits as it is in humans.

http://www.geocities.com/pamnock/RabbitWeight.pdf

Pam

 
From the pics she is quite a big doe. I have 2 does like that (big ugly does) and I would agree in the first pic she is way overweight but in the second pic she looks not to bad Still a bit on the chunky side as you can see the fat sitting round her shoulders

You won't be able to get rid of her dewlap completely once its there its there!

I wouldn't take all her pellets off her just limit them and feed a lot of hay.

When a doe has too much fat she won't conceive anyway as the fat lays down in the body around the ovaries and other ladies bits which seems to cause problems (Just cause I know you mated her but it was unsuccessful!)



This is a pic of Mrs Opi she is a BUD she doesn't have any excess fat but she is a big doe roughly twice the weight of my show buck!! But you can see no real bulgy bits thats what I would aim for with Willow.:)

DSC01201.jpg

 
Thanks for all your advice. I would like to say I am not starving her. I was giving her like 1/4 a cup of pellets once a day and it did nothing, if she has pellets and hay she won't even touch most of the hay. Thanks aurora I will make sure that she loses the weight slowly. I think right now her body is just shrinking a bit because she seems to be the same weight.

I have been giving Willow a little bit of pellets once a day every other day at least. I haven't been giving her many greens but I will start to soon, the wheather is yucky here so I can' t giver her any wet grass.

And actually she had a bit of a dewlap when i got her and then it went away. ( as seen in picture number 2. And like i said before, it is mostly just extra skin and fat from being to fat.
 
Pam, she's not being starved, don't worry ;). She has unlimited access to grass hay, and she gets pellets every few days (not much) and she has had grass and veggies also. Plus she gets exercise too, so yeah. And yes we'll make sure she doesn't loose weight too fast :)

Emily
 
The original post stated that she was on a "no pellet diet" and that she had lost an incredible amount of weight in just 4 days. Not healthy. Her pellets should be slowly cut back, but some are required so she's receiving the proper nutrients.

Pam
 
I had been slowly cutting her back. She has been getting less and less pellets over the past month since we found out she wasn't preggo we cut her back to like 1/4 of pellets twice a day and then every now and then she would get it only once a day and then it was like for a few days and then a week and then we cut her all the way. But I also said that she gets some pellets once a day every other day or so. I am going to be giving her a bit more now. Also she hasn't lost weight i don't think, i think mostly right now she just has shrunk a bit, she still feels the same weight. And I will make sure that she is losing weight healthier from now on.
 
BSAR wrote:
I had been slowly cutting her back. She has been getting less and less pellets over the past month since we found out she wasn't preggo we cut her back to like 1/4 of pellets twice a day and then every now and then she would get it only once a day and then it was like for a few days and then a week and then we cut her all the way. But I also said that she gets some pellets once a day every other day or so. I am going to be giving her a bit more now. Also she hasn't lost weight i don't think, i think mostly right now she just has shrunk a bit, she still feels the same weight. And I will make sure that she is losing weight healthier from now on.

But the point is you never said she is eating hay ;)You have to state that, otherwise people think you aren't feeding her anything. You just were saying her situation. So you need to say that you're feeding her hay ;)

Emily
 
Amanda actually did say that she was eating hay in the first post....she said, "So I am very proud of Willow, she has been doing such a great job eating only hay and a small amount of pellets like once every couple of days."

My concern is for Willow's metabolism since she isn't getting some pellets every day. Let me give you an example....there are a ton of weight loss diets out there for humans - and many of them have you eating either tiny amounts of food or fluids only or whatever.

But it is my understanding that the body needs "x" amount of food on a daily basis to keep the metabolism in order. If I were to eat 1800 calories one day and then 1200 calories the next day...my body would be fluctuating up and down trying to handle everything. THerefore - the best thing to do would be to consistently have a set amount every day - the same calorie amount. If 1200 calories was too low (which it would be for me) - then I'd try for 1500 calories. But the idea is....the same amount every day.

By giving Willow pellets every other day or every third or fourth day...basically, you're screwing up her metabolism I went and read on two or three websites about helping rabbits lose weight and all of them seemed to say to drop her pellets SLOWLY and to drop the weight slowly. If it was my rabbit - I wouldn't want a loss of more than maybe an ounce or two a week at most - because you risk damaging the kidneys.

In fact, when Saphira didn't eat for a week and dropped a lot of weight - I had to be very careful that her cecum wasn't damaged and we had to make sure she didn't have too much but that she also ate enough.

I agree that Willow probably should lose some weight....but the "no pellet" diet just is not what I normally read as being recommended by the experts.

Anyway - best of luck to y'all and Willow. But I did understand even from the first post that she was getting hay.

Peg
 
Honestly? She may need to slim down a little, but I'd be very cautious to make her lose weight down to show weight. She reminds me of Erik- he doesn't have the "dwarfing" gene. He looks like a Netherland Dwarf, but is probably about four pounds. Granted, he *is* slightly chunky and could probably stand to be slightly slimmer, but he's still at a pretty good weight range. If I pushed him to be two pounds he'd be only skin and bones.

He can never be shown, obviously, but he is a good weight for his natural body size.

The SAFE rate of weight loss is .5 pounds a month if not slightly less. Trust me, you don't feel like dealing with fatty liver disease.

Erik at one point was about 5.9 pounds as opposed to his current 4.4. He was 4.2 a couple of months sooner. This was in July that I noticed he had gotten fat. It wasn't until November that he was 4.4-4.6, and even then I was slightly worried that he had lost weight too quickly.

I didn't cut back drastically on his pellets. As a matter of fact at first I didn't cut back at all. I just added greens to his diet, with the same amount of pellets (1/2 of a cup. Yes, too much.) At the end of the month I increased the greens a bit and decreased the pellets to 1/3 of a cup. Two weeks later he was at 1/4 of a cup, a small amount of alfalfa hay, and the same amount of greens. Now, he is at 1/6 of a cup, lots of greens, and a handful of alfalfa every other day. However he probably gets more pellets than that as Ivory (an eight-nine-pounder) gets a little over 1/4 of a cup, and he probably eats some of hers. Likewise she tends to hog his greens unless he does.)
 
OMG! I can't even imagine taking away my bunnies' pellets! They generally don't eat a ton of them but they eat them.

Tony is going to be weighed soon and if he's too heavy, we'll evaluate his build. He's not going to do well on a show table over his teeth anyhow, so if he's not built to be 10 lbs or under - (I think he is under that but it's close) we'll live. He's healthy and happy. If it's only like 1/2 pound he needs to lose - he probably could, but I would try excercise and cutting back on his pellets first.

We have a code of ethics in my household. We quit showing sheep with friends because of how they did things.... putting bleach in their water to keep them from drinking on show days...... stuff like that doesn't float with me.
 
Yes I did say that I am giving Willow hay. And it is kinda obvious that I would, I wouldn't not feed her.

I didn't know that feeding her pellets every other day would screw up her metabolism. Now I have heard in books and from other people that you can do a 'no pellets' diet. And some bunnies on this forum as I have found don't get any pellets. I can't remember who but there are some people on here that do that.

You need to try and understand that even if Ifeed Willow like a handful of pellets twice a day she won't touch her hay. I can try however do feed her a little more than a handful of pellets once a day so that she can lose the weight slowly but she probably wont lose much. Because we are doing that with one of our bucks and he has only lost half a pound, but that has been over a month or so, so yeah. And he is back down at show wieght.

I will start feeding Willow just over a handful of pellets once a day so that she can lose the weight slowly.She CAN get back down that show weight because she has gotten down a bit before and was able to show. But actually I think that her old owners just thought she was to fat because of her size, so when I got her she was the ok weight. I am still going to show willow in type but until she drops back down, which may take until county fair, I am just going to show her in any pet shows and I will weight her at those shows.

The scale that I have is for humans and is not accurate at all. So we need to get one like they have at shows.

Thanks for all of your advice. I will let you know how Willow continues to do. Thanks for helping me so she wouldnt get sick:goodjob

Amanda
 
This gave me pause for a minute:
So I am very proud of Willow, she has been doing such a great job eating only hay and a small amount of pellets like once every couple of days.
Anyhow, I do suggest looking at Pam's obesity article. It has a lot of great information in it.

I'd also consider possibly vetting her once weight does begin to steadily drop just to make sure everything goes well and the transition is a healthy one. Ibimi (the dutch in Pam's article) has had a lot of trouble with her liver due to her weight and previous diet/care she received. My vet has had to interviene several times in order to keep her comfortable and healthy.
 
BSAR wrote:
Yes I did say that I am giving Willow hay. And it is kinda obvious that I would, I wouldn't not feed her.

I didn't know that feeding her pellets every other day would screw up her metabolism. Now I have heard in books and from other people that you can do a 'no pellets' diet. And some bunnies on this forum as I have found don't get any pellets. I can't remember who but there are some people on here that do that.

You need to try and understand that even if Ifeed Willow like a handful of pellets twice a day she won't touch her hay. I can try however do feed her a little more than a handful of pellets once a day so that she can lose the weight slowly but she probably wont lose much. Because we are doing that with one of our bucks and he has only lost half a pound, but that has been over a month or so, so yeah. And he is back down at show wieght.

I will start feeding Willow just over a handful of pellets once a day so that she can lose the weight slowly.She CAN get back down that show weight because she has gotten down a bit before and was able to show. But actually I think that her old owners just thought she was to fat because of her size, so when I got her she was the ok weight. I am still going to show willow in type but until she drops back down, which may take until county fair, I am just going to show her in any pet shows and I will weight her at those shows.

The scale that I have is for humans and is not accurate at all. So we need to get one like they have at shows.

Thanks for all of your advice. I will let you know how Willow continues to do. Thanks for helping me so she wouldnt get sick:goodjob

Amanda

Mandi, Bruce isn't back down to showeight ;), he's still 8 ounces overweight...and Willow is only getting a small amount of pellets 1x a day, just like Bruce. We give them enough pellets to cover the bottom of their food dishes; along with this, they also get unlimited hay and fresh water, plus veggies, fruits and grass every other day :)

Emily
 

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