kirbyultra
Well-Known Member
Kirby and Penny are my bonded pair and they've been together since May this year. Since the very beginning they have been together only about 12 hours a day. Reason being Penny is a huge pig and she doesn't give Kirby a chance to ever eat or drink. When she sees food, she eats it all as fast as she can and she drinks more water than any rabbit I've ever met. Kirby is a leisure eater so by the time he gets around to it, Penny has already eaten his entire portion. To deal with this, I made a decision at the very beginning to allow them to be together all day long but at night they are separated so that Kirby can eat his pellets, veggies and drink some water. There have been times when I've fed Kirby during the middle of the day to encourage him to understand "eat it or lose it" to try to speed him up but no, he never catches up with Penny. He easily takes several hours to make it through his meal. Penny also gets mushy poops when she eats too many greens so the fact of the matter is I really can't allow them to eat together because it's bad for Kirby and it's bad for Penny.
Recently I've noticed that Penny is increasingly getting "wild" and hard to deal with when she is alone during the night hours and early morning hours, away from Kirby. They are near each other, but they are separated by a xpen. She slams herself into the xpen and it looks like it might be a bit painful to do that. When I used to open up the pen to reunite them, she'd dart for Kirby's uneaten food but more and more these days she just seems upset and sad to be away from him. When she breaks out of the pen, she just wants to snuggle Kirby. It's kind of heart breaking to watch her go through this.
RO has always offered some great suggestions for many situations. I am hoping someone has something neat for me to try and remedy this sticky situation?
The key is, if Penny wasn't such a hog, I would be fine with them spending 24/7 together. And honestly I am not gonna wake up in the middle of the night to check if Kirby finished eating so that I can reunite them. :rollseyes It's just not realistic. I dunno what else to do about this other than make Penny suck it up. In the back of my mind I just know that rabbit bonds are deeper than we may understand and I'm afraid that she is really stressed out from being separated. What do you think?
Recently I've noticed that Penny is increasingly getting "wild" and hard to deal with when she is alone during the night hours and early morning hours, away from Kirby. They are near each other, but they are separated by a xpen. She slams herself into the xpen and it looks like it might be a bit painful to do that. When I used to open up the pen to reunite them, she'd dart for Kirby's uneaten food but more and more these days she just seems upset and sad to be away from him. When she breaks out of the pen, she just wants to snuggle Kirby. It's kind of heart breaking to watch her go through this.
RO has always offered some great suggestions for many situations. I am hoping someone has something neat for me to try and remedy this sticky situation?
The key is, if Penny wasn't such a hog, I would be fine with them spending 24/7 together. And honestly I am not gonna wake up in the middle of the night to check if Kirby finished eating so that I can reunite them. :rollseyes It's just not realistic. I dunno what else to do about this other than make Penny suck it up. In the back of my mind I just know that rabbit bonds are deeper than we may understand and I'm afraid that she is really stressed out from being separated. What do you think?