Dietary requirements for a Female Flemish giant Rabbit

Hello! Yes, a vet would probably be able to determine age. I can't give you an exact measurement for a treat per pound of bun, but a treat per cup is what I do. She should be eating mostly dark leafed lettuce and fewer treats. It's normal that shes gaining weight as shes been in a cage for 4 years. I personally like to give my rabbit baby toys that they can toss around (fake baby keys and stackable cups) and wood chews. I love flemish giants too! I have a baby flemish mixed with a rex [emoji177] best of luck with your bun!

If she's gaining too much weight, then she's getting too many treats. The general rule of thumb is 1-2 tbsp max of treats per day. That's the equivalent of a single slice of apple or a 1" slice of carrot. However, being a larger rabbit, she may be able to get 3 tbsp (once the weight gain is back under control).

Pellets (nuggets) should be plain and not be a mix. There should be no colorful bits or seeds or corn in the pellets. An 11-15 lb rabbit should be getting about 3/4 cup of pellets per day. Pellets can also cause considerable weight gain -- especially if they are a mix and/or if they are not limited. You can see a comparison of various healthy brand options here:
http://www.therabbithouse.com/diet/rabbit-food-comparison.asp

If you need to switch her to a different brand, be sure to do so gradually by mixing the old with the new over a period of time.

I agree with everything Blue eyes said above. For toys, I would recommend getting a treat ball to put the nuggets in. If they're too large, they may need to be cut up to fit. This will also help her get extra exercise and lose weight. It's a great boredom breaker and although I have yet to try an actual ball (I used a paper towel tube, and a wicker ball he had chewed a hole in), I have heard they make great toys. Below is a picture of one. Most buns enjoy willow, and toys they can pick up and throw around. I have a baby key toy that my bun enjoys throwing around. He also enjoys slinkies.

Age is trickier to determine in rabbits once they're fully grown but before they start becoming "elderly" - you can't look at the condition of their teeth to guesstimate age because their teeth are constantly being replaced. One of the main ways that shelters determine age is based on evaluating tissues (thick/toughness of skin and other tissue) as they cut the rabbit open for spay/neuter surgery, heh.

Anyway, I firmly support the things Blue eyes and Alyssa and Bugs have said. In addition, the House Rabbit Society has a great article on diet/food quantities. Half an apple is way too much apple. Unless we're talking a baby carrot, that's also too much carrot. Be stingy with cruciferous veggies like cabbage, as they can cause gas which rabbits tend to have a very hard time dealing with (it can even lead to GI stasis).

Instead of sugary treats like fruits and carrots (the most sugary of non-leafy veggies), offer dark green, leafy things like non-iceberg lettuce (red/green leaf, romaine, endive and there's a few others), turnip/collard/mustard greens, swiss chard, kale, parsley, herbs, cilantro, spinach, watercress, beet tops, etc.

Find out what the appropriate weight for her is - if she's overweight, reduce or eliminate fruits/non-leafy-green veggies from the diet and gradually cut back or eliminate the pellets (as Blue eyes said, just say NO to museli-style mixes. PLAIN pellets are the only healthy kind!) until she reaches her ideal weight. At that point, reintroduce or increase the pellets slightly until she's maintaining a healthy weight.

Thank you all so so much for replying! I’m going to eliminate the half apple from her diet and look at going back to lettuce - my mum told me I shouldn’t be feeding her lettuce because it causes issues with gas, which it’s looking now to be cabbage so she must have got mixed up? I also forgot to add that Sted free roams between the house and the back garden on nice warm days so she’s getting lots of grass and dandelions too. I said mix accidentally she is on the nugget only feed I always wondered if it was normal that Sted was playing with my 1 y/o Daughters toys! You’re all such a big help, thank you

You have gotten excellent advice, already; but, please let me share our experience with our rabbits. I would split half an apple four ways, so they were not getting much; they'd also get a half-dozen raisins a day for good-night kisses. These treats were a big hit with them; but, a mommy doe started ballooning in size. Clearly, for her the treats had to go.

To be fair I cut out the treats to all the bunnies and substituted cilantro. The big doe stopped gaining weight and none of the bunnies seemed to miss what they were not getting. I concluded that I was giving treats more for my own enjoyment (watching them eat) than for theirs. The buns haven't complained one bit.

I'm always on the lookout for special healthy things the bunnies love. Right now willows are starting to put on leaves; the buns love them, branches, bark and all. Our flowering crab apple tree is blossoming; it needs trimming, anyhow. The rabbits eat both the blossoms and leaves. Dandelions? They go nuts over the flowers. Soon, the climbing rose will blossom. The flowers are another treat, non-fattening.

One word of caution: Always check into the safety of any new garden item you might want to feed. Some could be toxic. Be safe.

Your mom may have been thinking about iceberg lettuce, which can cause digestive upset, plus it has no nutritional value. Any non-iceberg/dark leafy lettuce is great. In the 7 rabbits I have or had as an adult, kale has been wildly popular with every single one of them and, price wise, it's equal to or cheaper than lettuce anyway - I recommend that to begin with.

Also, I neglected to mention that since you haven't been feeding leafy greens other than the one cabbage leaf, it's very important to introduce the greens slowly. Start with 1/2-1 leaf of something, depending on the size (a leaf or piece no bigger than your flattened hand would be a good way to measure it). Monitor poops and if they look normal the next day, you can increase portion size over the next two days until you're feeding a full serving of the veggie. If, by the third day, there's no sign of tummy troubles then that veggie can go on the "safe" list and you can start the process over with a new veggie.

As for what Orrin added... raisins may have been the biggest culprit. While fruit says 1 tsp per 2 lbs body weight as a maximum, it's super important to remember that any dried fruit has a more concentrated sugar content. A raisin should be "measured" as though it's an entire grape even though it's like 1/3 the size. I do thoroughly agree that treats are as much to make us feel good seeing them happy, lol.

If you want to feed flowers and such, be sure they haven't been treated with any sort of pesticide or weed killer and check the safe/unsafe lists for garden plants. Here's a good list of edible flowers and petals. Edible flowers are actually considered "non leafy vegetables" for measurement purposes, so you can give 1 tbsp per 2 lbs body weight daily (because non-leafy veggies are usually compact like carrots, turnips, green beans, beets, etc., I feel that you can compress the petals down when measuring so you're not measuring air, too). When feeding fruits, pellets and flowers and non-leafy veggies, always feed your rabbit portions based on what they SHOULD weigh, not what they DO weigh (so an overweight rabbit gets less than their actual weight's worth and an underweight rabbit gets more when it comes to pretty much everything but hay, which all rabbits should have an unlimited amount of).

We have a rose bush that blooms to an insane degree - I can't even seem to make a dent in it! It has small (carnation size at most) blooms. I just went out with a measuring cup and found that on our rose bush, 1/8 c (2 tbsp) = 3 flowers... I had actually guesstimated it to be about 1 tbsp per bloom, so I guess our rabbits can have more than I've been giving, hehe. For my 4 lb girls, they can apparently have 3 of our roses and Big Bunny can have 6. It's a lot easier to use a 1/8 cup measuring cup than an actual tbsp measure to measure flower petals, btw. - feed 1/8 c per 4 lbs body weight.

The rose petals are wildly popular - they get more excited when I come in with roses than they do about most fruits. They go berserk when the petals start falling around them, it's like watching an epic match of hungry hungry hippos! I especially love that Nala loves them because she's on a diet - like Orrin, I don't want to give her sugary fruits and have found that flowers are a healthier alternative that she thinks are just as special.