My bunny is eating dog food!

[jennybel]

Hi everyone, I've recently started letting my bunny go about the house freely when supervised. He has now started eating out of my dog's food bowl. Is this bad for him? I've been trying to keep it off the floor when he's out, but the dog won't eat all at once, so I don't want to have to keep it away from him a lot. I'm worried it will keep the bunny from eating his hay if he's getting his fill in dog food. Also, not sure if it is a nutritional issue or even really bad for him. Thanks for any info.

 

[stevesmum]

Yes it is bad for him! Keep out of reach! The rabbit digestive tract is not built to process the various meat and God knows what that's in dog food. Sorry I am sitting here a little shocked.

 

[whiskylollipop]

Could you raise the dog food up off the ground on a box or something that your dog can reach but the bunny can't? Agree that it's not good for him at all. Silly bun!

 

[Zirrathebunny]

I had this problem when i first got my Bunbun Zirra. He ate dog food since he thought it was giant pellets or something, maybe curious. However, I havnt seen any problems couple days after the incident. And Yes dog food is bad for bunnies, unless it wants to be a carnivore lol.

 

[jennybel]

Ok, thanks, that is pretty much what I thought so I will definitely be more careful about keeping it away from him! I'll figure something out. What's really wierd is, my cats have also been eating out of the dog bowl lately! It must be really tasty food or something...

 

[Blue eyes]

I couldn't resist sharing this photo of one of our past buns and dog. As you can see, we kept the food dish away unless it was our dog's dinnertime. :big wink:

 

[Akzholedent]

We have the opposite issue. Our dog likes to eat rabbit poo, and chicken grain.. lol we call her the grain fed German shepherd.

 

[BlazeBunnies]

My dogs love to eat rabbit poo and rabbit pellets too they help me clean but I try to get them away

 

[Chester1_andblueberry]

Me too!! They both eat dog food when given the chance it hasn't stopped its been 4 months!! My dogs love to eat rabbit poo I do try and keep them away but they eventually go around me and strike gold -.-

 

[Zirrathebunny]

My three chihuahuas love eating the rabbits poo for some reason lol

 

[LuckyAmi]

I have this problem as well... I only let Lucky free roam in one room, and it is the same room that my dog hangs out the most in, so her food is there too... but then Lucky started to get in to her kibble. So I raised it up off the floor... but then he just started jumping up and getting in to it again. I can't raise it up much higher because Ginger is a small dog (italian greyhound), and if it gets raised up much higher, there is no way she can reach it. For now, I've had to move it out of the room... but I don't really like that option because I'm worried that Ginger will not get enough kibble if it's out of the room. My work around at the moment is to get a small bowl of kibbles and keep it on a bookshelf. When Lucky takes his late morning / early afternoon nap, put him in the cage and set the food down on the ground for Ginger. That way it's on the floor for her for a couple of hours for her to graze on. She also has a chance to eat kibbles when I leave the house, because Lucky goes in his cage at that time and she has free access to the kibble in the hall.

I don't really like this solution and I'm trying to figure out something better to do, but I'm just not sure what that is yet...

 

[Trinauto1994]

Hi everyone, I've recently started letting my bunny go about the house freely when supervised. He has now started eating out of my dog's food bowl. Is this bad for him? I've been trying to keep it off the floor when he's out, but the dog won't eat all at once, so I don't want to have to keep it away from him a lot. I'm worried it will keep the bunny from eating his hay if he's getting his fill in dog food. Also, not sure if it is a nutritional issue or even really bad for him. Thanks for any info.

hey I’m just replying to your post bc everyone says how bad dog food is for bunny’s but I have raised 13 rabbits from hand feeding to threw there first year all domestic one wild I also have two dogs who have hard food at all times and every single one of my bunny’s have had dog food and prefer it over there own and my one rabbit that I didn’t adopt out has now been eating the dog food for over 2 years and is 100% fine rabbits are more of a carnivore then omnivore then one would think rabbits in the wild eat both meat and graze so I hope this answered your question

 

[LoveMyBuns]

Hi, Thank you for posting this... I've been looking for an answer to this question. We give our dog really good food, so I am not as worried as if it was filled with roadkill, etc (lol). I did however notice that suddenly, after loosing LOTS of weight for God know what reason (as well as getting a dull patchy coat), my wild Bun was fat and sassy again, and his coat was simply RADIANT! Then, I saw him... Happily chewing the dog's food as if he had struck bunny gold! After my initial panic, I watched him a few days and noticed he was fine in every sense of the word.

Thank you for setting my mind at ease... Although I will *try* to circumvent this behavior, if he ever looses weight again, I think I'll know how to put it back on!

(Ps- the one picture is of him enjoying his cuddles ... He's such a lovey Bun, and the joy of my existence !!)

 

[NotaCocoaPuff]

My late Mr. Rabbit used to scavenge the dog and cat food dishes just to make sure there were no scraps left behind. He was very sneaky about it and knew exactly when we weren't paying attention. We would come around the corner and just say to him "what are you doing?" sternly like he was our kid and he would run back to his bunspace knowing exactly what he was up to. Very funny! We had to move our dog food into locked closets because he would chew through the bag or plastic container to get to it. We were also careful (most of the time) to remove the food dishes after meal time. We joked that he was better than our dog at cleaning up everyones crumbs because he did a sweep of the kitchen after every meal

 

[LoveMyBuns]

My late Mr. Rabbit used to scavenge the dog and cat food dishes just to make sure there were no scraps left behind. He was very sneaky about it and knew exactly when we weren't paying attention. We would come around the corner and just say to him "what are you doing?" sternly like he was our kid and he would run back to his bunspace knowing exactly what he was up to. Very funny! We had to move our dog food into locked closets because he would chew through the bag or plastic container to get to it. We were also careful (most of the time) to remove the food dishes after meal time. We joked that he was better than our dog at cleaning up everyones crumbs because he did a sweep of the kitchen after every meal

That is hilarious! They are *so* smart! My bun also seems to know its naughty after just _ONE_ time of me chasing him away from the food bowl. So now, he does it when we're not looking.

 

[ArtistChibi]

I, literally, watched my mother-in-law's dog eat Shen's poop after watching Shen eat his own poop. So....