Is Brody too skinny?

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undergunfire

undergunfire

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Brody normally doesn't want you touching his body, but he loves for you to pet his head, face, and ears. Well, last night he was being a crazy bunno and letting me pet him all over.


I noticed that I can feel every bone in his body. I can feel his hip points, his spine, rib cage, his neck is skinny...every thing. This was a major shock to me.

He was getting 3/4 cups of pellets (Oxbow BBT) nightly, but now he recieves 1/4 cup of pellets (Oxbow BBT) nightly, which seems right because he doesn't leave me massive piles of cecals every day to scrape off the floor.

For those who don't know....Brody is an almost 7 month old Holland Lop. Brody also eats tons of hay daily (I can take a picture to show how much). He gets 1 craisin a night before bed, and he gets 1 tablespoon of old fashioned oats every couple of days now.



I wonder if I am just being a worry freak or if he really is very skinny. Now I wonder if all my bunnies are? Are you supposed to feel a bunnies spine and hip points? I can feel Marlin and Morgan's spine, but Brody's sticks out more.

:huh

 
Maybe a photo would help to understand if/how skinny he is. I mean that there are slimmer shaped breeds and more full and round shaped ones and I wouldn't know what the ideal weight for Brody's breed would be. Our breeder members could help in ascertaining this.

Maybe if you tried going a bit more in his pellet quantity just to test? My bun is very energetic and he burns a lot of calories in running around in ...light speed and climbing up and down, so what I do is that I monitor his weight every 10-15 days and if I see that he goes down in weight (I have to watch his pellet quantity, because he has a sensitive tummy), I add a bit more quantity of pellets and he gets his missing grams back in no time. Just tossing an idea...

Marietta
 
i can feel hips and spine on both Tony and Muffin. at Tony's last vet check (a few weeks ago) they said he was a good weight, maybe even a little overweight, and i should be able to feel the hips and spine if I look for them. Muffin was rescued from a neglect situation, so she had to put on some weight to be healthy, but she's fine now. i haven't taken her to the vet yet though, and her bones are more pronounced than Tony's. i have a terrible time determining if my bunnies are the right weight, so i just go with whatever the vet says. the oats should help him put on weight if you're worried, and if they don't, he might have some kind of parasite or something.
 
Amy!

Nemo had problems like this too. He eats an insane amount of hay everyday but he wasn't getting any pellets because I couldn't find a brand he would eat. Finally I found the oxbow pellets and i started to give him 1/8 a cup everyday. The vet said he was too skinny, I mean, you could feel between every single vertabrae in his spine. It was pretty sick. Once Nemo got on the pellets though, he gained about a 1/2 a pound in a little more than a month. He was 2lbs 13oz and now he is 3lbs 8oz. The vet said he can probably eat the 1/8 cup of pellets a day for the rest of his life. A little bag has lasted me so long so far...woof.

Also, I believe it was Pamnock who said that Holland Lops (or Lops in general?) are notorious for weight issues. I asked about Nemo's weight a couple of months ago I think in this section of the forum as well.

Does that help at ALL? Sorry if it didn't, but at least you know, Brody isn't the only Holland Lop on the block who eats and eats and eats and doesn't gain a pound! (JERKS!)

Tracy
 
Hmm, I went and felt Sakura and Bailey, and I can feel where their rib cage and hip bones are.

I've had an emaciated rabbit with Jack when he was sick then passed away, and for sure you can feel the difference between too skinny and healthy. For me, an emaciated rabbit will appear to have a huge head. Everything else on the rabbit will look (not just feel, but look) narrow and sunken in. You can cup you hand in a C shape over their spine, and be able to feel that your fingers might wrap around and touch underneath.


It's so hard with bunnies to really tell but Brody always looks good in pictures. I'd say that unless you feel like you can wrap your hand around his spine and have your fingers touch, I wouldn't panic too much. Does he weigh in at a good weight for his breed? How does he do with vegies? Could you grow him some grass or something? Maybe he's lacking muscle tone? I find with lops they seem to have this thin saggy skin sometimes that makes them feel skinny.
 
Amy, I understand your concern. I'm glad a bunch of other people have already replied! Tallulah is a Holland Lop too and I was worried she might be underweight because I can feel her spine and hip points too. She certainly looks fluffy and chubby, and has a nice round tummy, but I swear she's bonier than Rory. When I took her to the vet a couple weeks ago, I mentioned my concern over her weight and the vet felt her and thought she was fine :)

Did Pamnock say that Holland lops have trouble being underweight, overweight or just weight problems in general? I would have just assumed they tend to have problems with being overweight because they just look chubbier to me than other bunnies!
 
Well, it certainly sounds like he eats enough:p. Seriously, I can feel Snuff's spine and hips. Not sure about ribs, I'll have to check on that. His neck isn't skinny at all:?. That's a tad worrying, could just be his genetics though. How much does he weigh? I'll have to look at the last time Snuff was at the vet, but if I remember right, he was about 5lbs.

It's funny because about a week ago, I started wondering if Snuff was skinny, he's not, I am just being paranoid. He has a ton of hair and it's not exactly short, so I think without shedding/moulting that maybe that makes them look a bit thinner.

Sorry, this probably wasn't any help at all. It's hard to explain.
 
SnowyShiloh wrote:
Did Pamnock say that Holland lops have trouble being underweight, overweight or just weight problems in general? I would have just assumed they tend to have problems with being overweight because they just look chubbier to me than other bunnies!
Click to expand...

I have several Holland Lops - every single one of them is chubby except for one. Fidgit eats like crazy, and isn't really underweight but he's much smaller than the others. So I wonder this too! lol - since mine are all a bit tubby (but so cute!) :)
 
I know Dallas eats ALOT. In pictures he looks nice and fluffy. In person he does, but if you run your hands over his hips and spine you can feel it. I know he eats ALOT. For some reason you can feel his spine.
 
I kept my rabbits on Alfalfa Oxbow until they were almost a year old. infact, this is Tony's first week on BBT completely. We just weened him over last week and over the weekend.

Just my opinion - maybe he needed that for a while ?


I also give Bo 1/8 cup of BBT in the morning and 1/8 at night. He got a bit too thin for my taste so I give him a pinch extra at night now.
 
Wow! Thank you for all the replies. It really helps me a lot to know that a lot of people have issues with their Hollands.

I am not sure what Brody's weight is. All the bunnies on his pedigree are between 3 to 4 pounds. If I have to guess, he is 3 to 3 1/2 lbs. I really need to invest in some sort of scale. Do baby scales work?

I spoke with Alicia on the phone while I was at work, and she said I should slowly increase his pellets to 1/2 cup daily and see how he is with his cecal poops (if he has too many, like before when he was on 3/4 cup daily).

If you look at Brody in a picture or in person, he looks fat and chubby, like most Hollands look. Maybe I am being a worry freak? Marlin has a skinny neck too. I feel like I am feeding the bunnies correctly. I do not feed veggies because they always go to waste...Morgan won't eat them, Marlin eats a bit, Brody eats a ton....but I always find myself throwing half the veggies away, which is a waste of money. I wouldn't think feeding veggies would help with his weight, though?


Brodoh the turdo...I feed him and he looks at me as if to say, "Uh, is this all you are giving me? When are you going to learn that I am staaaarving, LADY?!". I always feel so bad, but I know he is tricking me.



Not sure if this would mean anything or not....but the other night I fed Brody is 1/4 cup of pellets and filled his box with hay...and he ate some pellets, then layed down, ate some pellets, layed down. He finished his pellets in about a half hour, compaired to the about 10 minutes it normally takes him. I felt his belly and it felt a tad bit hard, so I let him out of his cage to run around and binky, and made sure he ate lots of hay....when he returned to his cage he did have a ton of poops in his litter box.




Also, I know this is a long post (lol), but Brody drinks about 1 1/2 to 2 normal sized Dasani (just a size compairison) water bottles of water a day, with ice...he always needs ice, lol. I literitally have to change his litter box every other day because he pees and poops so much (he has a mesh screen over the litter). By changing it every other day...the wood pellets are drenched with pee, the litter box is extremely heavy...and I only put about a 1 inch layer of litter in the bottom.



I think I need to read more about Hollands, lol.
 
I had a champion show bunny I babysat one time in transit... I had him for 10 days at easter it was awesome.....

anyhow he was a holland and he had about 1/4 cups twice a day. That was full grown.


 
I'm not sure how much this will help, but it's been told to me that Fiver is a Holland Lop that's just missing the dwarfing gene. I can feel his hips, etc, too...and right now, he's eating 1/3c pellets (Oxbow BBT) because the vet would like to see him at about 6lbs, and he's almost there, but not quite.

I think what you're seeing is a Holland Lop thing...given that Fiver drinks quite a lot, too (I'd have to check with Danny to see just how much, but I know it's a lot), and I can feel his bone structure, but he's not terribly under what the vet wants him at.

Hugs to you and Brody (and of course everyone else)!

Rosie*
 
Hrm, I must be worrying for nothing. Every thing that every one is explaining about their Hollands makes me believe it really is just "the Hollands", lol :).

I think I am still going to "up" his feed a bit and add in the oats nightly (instead of every few days). I'll see how that works for him.


I have a feeling that when Marlin, Morgan, and Brody bond...I am going to have issues with feed. Marlin likes to take his time with his pellets, Morgan takes a little time too, but Brody scarfs every thing down.
 
Snuff is quite a food beggar! Most buns are, never had a Holland before, but he is a stitch!:p He get's Rob everytime:shock:.

We can discuss this via msn if you'd like, let me get some specs for ya though, age/weight, etc.

C:D

Here's a very recent pic of Snuff, and don't worry, he doesn't mess with the cords-at all:biggrin2:. You can see the state of his body, a very healthy state, I believe. Take a pic of Brode yay far away and compare. Brode shouldn't be his weight just yet though.

Oh, andSnuff has a moolap now:p! He grooms it and pulls on it too sometimes, is that normal?:?


DSCN1350.jpg


 
Amy, he looks fine to me;). Especially for his age. He's still runty looking, haha. Wait til he's like 2:D. He should put on some mass here in the next bit though. Just monitor how he looks from here out. Then you can better manage how he looks. I know what you mean though, sometimes Snuff really does look like a different bun to me, it's weird. But he's not underweight, strange.:)


Here's him from the front:

DSCN1351.jpg

 
I would think rabbits, like people, have different metabolisms. If he's a little piggy and he's not overweight, I think he can get more food as long as it doesn't make him eat less hay. (Is he a big hay eater?)

Our Breeds section is sorely in need of work so it's currently shut down, but here are the specs from there... (sorry if you were already looking, AnS, didn't see the post).

Not sure if this is helpful. (We had a pic of a very overweight HL, but I see it was one of the lost of at least not-reinstatedattachments).

[align=left]The Holland Lop isa breed which exudes massiveness in a compact package. Weighing 3-4pounds, Hollands are short coupled with a round head, flat face, widebody, full chest, and short lop ears that fall from a wrap-aroundcrown. Their body-to-head ratio is 2 to 1, with the overall lookreminiscent of a Bulldog. Coming in a variety of broken and solidcolors, Hollands have a unique show pose of resting lightly on theirfront feet. Most importantly the Holland Lop has a sociable, comedicnature that is truly endearing. It is for this, that the Holland Lopattracts so many, and is considered by the fancy as the"Hallmark breed".
[/align]
[align=left]Danielle Pesko, Autumn Frost Hollands[/align]
Sr. Bucks & Does - 6 months of age and over, not over 4 lbs.



Jr. Bucks and Does - under 6 months of age, Min weight 2 lbs.


http://www.lotsalops.com/HollandLops.html



sas :)
 
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