Different feeding habits, future bonding pair

[svaz15]

On Valentine's Day I adopted a 4.5lbs unknown breed female rabbit, who I plan on bonding with my 2lb dwarf lionhead male rabbit. The bonding process will not be happening for at least 1 or 2 more months; my male was just neutered a week ago, and the female needs to adjust to our household. My biggest concern (other than issues with the actual bonding process) is their eating habits.

Maddie (the female) is on a diet, she needs to loose about 0.5-0.75lbs. She eats everything in front of her pretty quickly. I am trying to get her to slow down. But because she is a larger breed, on a diet, and eating a different pellet than the male, I can not have her eating the males food.

Calvin (the male) is only 2-2.5lbs (if he is 2.5lb when I weigh him this week he will be put on a slight diet to get back to 2.0lbs). He is more of a grazer with his pellets (pellets meant for dwarf rabbits) and his greens, it may take him 24 hours to eat his full portion of pellets (if he eats all of it at all), and 12 hours for his greens (again if even eats all of it).

Is there anyone who has had to deal with this? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

[Imbrium]

I've got a grazer myself. One thing you can do is stop giving Calvin his pellets in his cage and instead, start offering them by hand as treats (throughout the day as your schedule allows, since he probably won't eat many at once). He'll probably still eat a bit of Maddie's pellets once they're bonded, but that shouldn't be a big deal since she'll presumably scarf down the majority and it sounds like your main concern is keeping HER from eating HIS pellets.

Also, if he just got neutered, I assume he's never had a bonded companion? Sometimes being paired with a gobbler (which my Nala always has been - she's the only grazer I've ever had) can stimulate the grazer-type bunny to eat more at once, whether it's the sense of competition or the communal activity of sharing food. Splitting veggies into multiple servings per day (even if it's just morning and night) once they're bonded would give Calvin more opportunity to eat his share even if he only eats a little bit at once. Smaller, more frequent portions of both veggies and pellets would also work towards your goal of getting Maddie to slow down on inhaling food.

If you've got a little spare cash and want to experiment... we used to have one really fat, older cat and one skinny one. I considered buying food dishes where the food is covered and only opens up if an animal with the right frequency of RFID chip on their collar tries to come eat, lol. I mostly didn't get around to it because I felt like Roo (the chubby one) was smart enough to wait for Penny to be eating and then butt in and start eating her food... but it was an interesting idea!

 

[JBun]

If you've got a little spare cash and want to experiment... we used to have one really fat, older cat and one skinny one. I considered buying food dishes where the food is covered and only opens up if an animal with the right frequency of RFID chip on their collar tries to come eat, lol. I mostly didn't get around to it because I felt like Roo (the chubby one) was smart enough to wait for Penny to be eating and then butt in and start eating her food... but it was an interesting idea!

I'd like to see the bunny that is smart enough to figure that out. Of course I guess they wouldn't have to figure out anything. Rabbits are opportunists, mine sure are, as soon as they hear the crunch of the other rabbit eating pellets(or anything tasty for that matter), they're right there to make sure they don't miss out. I can't even sneak one little tasty dried willow leaf to one of them without all of them perking their ears up and coming running. It's a great idea though, and could maybe work for some rabbits, though you'd have to figure out a different way for the rabbit to have the triggering chip (fyi for others that read this, she isn't recommending putting a collar on a rabbit).

 

[Imbrium]

I know that rabbits can count, lol. If you give two craisins to one rabbit, you'd better give two to both because they KNOW if the other rabbit got more! (This is why, when I had a 3.5 lb lionhead with a nearly 8 lb supposed polish mix, I looked for clumps of 2-3 craisins stuck together to give the bigger bunny so that they thought they were both getting the same amount, lol).

And my apologies... we have cats/rabbits but not dogs so I'm used to it going without saying and I meant to mention it anyway but spaced halfway through my post... Honestly, I don't think there's anything wrong with a collar on a rabbit, but it absolutely HAS to be a breakaway collar like you'd use on cats! If it won't pop off the moment it gets caught on something, it's not safe.

 

[JBun]

I know that rabbits can count, lol. If you give two craisins to one rabbit, you'd better give two to both because they KNOW if the other rabbit got more! (This is why, when I had a 3.5 lb lionhead with a nearly 8 lb supposed polish mix, I looked for clumps of 2-3 craisins stuck together to give the bigger bunny so that they thought they were both getting the same amount, lol).

:lol: (well that emoji didn't work, by the way, what happened to all the emojis we used to have?)

 

[Imbrium]

I know! I miss : pray: (hands together for praying emoji) whenever someone's got a sick bunny. We used to have such good emotes!