Bonded couple with different eating rates?

[JarJar Binks]

Thumpette and Mrs Peabody are going to be getting back together in a couple months (upcoming spay, downtime and then bonding). Originally they bothwolfed down their pellets and greens as fast aspossiblein fear the other would eat the rest, but now they take all the time in the world. Under normal circumstances,Mrs Peabody is a very slow eater and Thumpette is rather greedy. I'm worried that even with seperate bowls/salads thatThumpette might try to take advantage.

I know I shouldn't count my chickens before they hatch, but would it be logical to completely seperate them at meal time? Have others delt with this same issue?

 

[Korr_and_Sophie]

If you can, put the food dishes in different areas of the cage and get each rabbit to use one. You can monitor them so that when the slower one is done you can take away that food until later. Do the same with salads. If you can't easily monitor them, then try giving only what they will eat when they are sitting at the bowl so there isn't any left over for the other to steal.

If one is a slower eater, then separating them doesn't really work. Smaller meals more often can work, but you would have to do it for both of them.

 

[missyscove]

My new boys are like that. Sherlock is definitely a slower eater than Watson is. I don't really worry if one is getting more greens than the other although I do try to spread them throughout the cage/room so they have to move around a bit. When it comes to their pellet ration, they get about half of it out of their dish but the other half I hand feed them. It's a great way for them to bond with me and I know both of them are getting some pellets.

 

[Imbrium]

my issue isn't that Nala eats slowly, but that she nibbles a bit and then wanders off and comes back for more later while Gaz will sit there and gorge herself. it's more of an issue with veggies than pellets, since getting Nala to eat veggies is an uphill battle. if I have time, I sit there and keep Gaz out of Nala's portion of the kale and persistently nag Nala, saying "eat your kale!" and offering her some.

Gaz is prone to weight issues, but because nala's such a nibbler I can't really feed them separately... luckily, Nala will munch on hay all day long when the pellets/veggies run out. I try to give extra leafy greens so that Gaz eventually gets full and leaves some for Nala to come back to and I feed them four times a day to spread stuff out (pellets at breakfast and bedtime, veggies at lunch and dinner).

 

[ldoerr]

I do not have much of a problem with it with my bunnies. I have been feeding 2/3 of a cup of pellets a day, but my girls always have pellets left when I go to bed (they get pellets in the morning). Today they got 1/2c to share between both of them. As of last I checked (an hour ago) they had most of the pellets left. They seen to eat through out the day and finish it at night. The pellets are normally gone in the morning. Shiny Things always goes straight to attacking the pellets in the morning. There is plenty of oportunity for them both to eat their food.

 

[agnesthelion]

When I first started bonding, Archie was way more of an eater than Agnes. I initially wondered if eating would be a problem too. But isn't at all. I feed them at the same time from two seperate dishes and they both eat their own share.
Eating together is a bonding activity among rabbits. I wouldn't completely seperate them, but feed from two seperate dishes as others have suggested. Supervise to make sure somewhat equal portions are being had, but I would guess over time they will work it out on their own. If truly bonded, rabbits won't let another rabbit in their warren starve.

 

[holtzchick]

Wow you must be reading my mind i came home and thought I would post this question thanks for answers all

 

[kaymas]

I was going to ask this at some point to!

Nero and Lupa start off both being greedy with the food but lupa will tend to "get full" sooner than Nero will. We feed them from separate bowls but its still pretty much a free for all and they both eat from both pellet bowls and both veggie bowls lol. It's quite funny actually. We might have to start moving the bowls to opposite ends of the cage or something lol.