what is the best way to get a rabbit to lose weight?

Answer 1

Cut down on sugary foods. it should get its vegetables, pellets, and hay. Mostly all rabbits should be a good size, or that means its unhealthy. Just leave ur rabbit the way it is. Making it eat less, could affect it in bad ways.

hope it helps!

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

If he's really overweight, cut back on any treats and increase the amount of good quality timothy or oaten hay. I had trouble getting oaten hay for a while and had to use lucerne, all my rabbits put on weight, so hay does make a difference. Check that your pellets aren't filled with seeds, nuts and fruits. Only use plain, high fibre, low protein pellets.

Exercise will also help. Try to give him a good area to run around and play in. If he can't have this permanently, at least get him out for a few hours each day.

There's an article here with pictures

http://www.rabbitsinthehouse.org/newsletter/obesity.pdf

Answer 4

First limit their food intake. Your vet can tell you how much to limit it too. Also only give them timothy hay not alfalfa. Alfalfa is loaded with unnecessary calories. Alfalfa should only be fed to babies and nursing mothers. Most importantly switch to a timothy hay based pellet rather than an alfalfa based pellet. They're hard to find but Oxbow makes a good one. When I put my rabbit on a diet the vet told me to not worry about veggies, they're loaded with sugars. Give them a set amount of pellets each day and unlimited timothy hay. These two contain all the nutrition they need. If your bunny is still hungry when the pellets are gone, it'll eat the hay. As long as there is unlimited hay, he won't go hungry, and he wont gain unnecesary weight. Don't forget unlimited fresh water. Hope this helps and good luck.

Answer 5

definately have to cut the sugary foods. My rabbit loves the yogurt treats but i only give half or every other day.. My bunny is soo healthy i was afraid she might be overweight. '
Give your bunny lots of hay, pellets and if you have a mix of pellets with dried fruit make sure to take out the corn. That makes them overweight too. give her the fresh fruit, like apples, pears and raisins but very little dependent on her size and then weight.. good luck

Answer 6

let it run around more rabbits love to get out in a room and play

Answer 7

The first thing I want to stress is that rabbit weight should not be treated like human weight or dog or cat weight. You can't put a rabbit on a diet per se like you can a human, dog or cat. If you cut back on the feed, all you are going to do is get rid of muscle and not fat. If you have a doe that is fat, that has fat around the ovaries and you are trying to lean her down to get her bred. It won't work. You cannot get rid of fat around the ovaries. There are several professional articles on the subject.

Fat on a rabbit isn't caused by giving it too much. It is caused by a poor diet or poor quality rabbit food. First, watch what treats you are giving it. It's probably a good idea to stop the treats and go just to rabbit pellets and water. The reason I say to watch the treats first is for a couple of reasons. Most treats such as fruits and vegatables contain carbohyrdates or basically sugars. Rabbits can't digest sugars well. The sugars are what can cause them to get diahrrea. Also, just like all of the info from the carb diets you hear about, unused carbohydrates go straight to fat.


Second, look at the ingredients and percentages on your rabbit pellets. Especially look at the percentage of fat and crude protein. Fat goes to fat and crude protein is protein that cannot be processed by the rabbit's system. Neither is good for trying to keep a lean rabbit. You also want to look to see if corn is on the ingredient list and if so, how close to the beginning of the list it is. Corn has a lot of crude protein and it can cause your rabbit to get fat and also to get hot in the summer. It is somewhat of a cheap filler. It is ok if it is listed on the feed. You just don't want it listed towards the beginning of the ingredients list. The ingredients are listed in order of what ingredient constitutes the largest portion of the feed to what ingredient constitutes the smallest portion of the feed. The closer corn is to the beginning of the list. The more corn is in your feed.

Lard or oil normally makes up the fat content in the feed. It is used to help bind the feed in the pellets. If not enough is added the pellets will fall apart and you will get a lot of feed dust in the bottom of the bag. Screens and vaccuums are used to help get rid of the dust, but still the less fat/oil that is used the more the pellets fall apart. However remember, fat goes to fat. So the feed company is trying to keep a delicate balance.

You may want to try switching feeds if you want to keep your rabbit lean. A couple feeds that I have heard are good are Purina, Heinold, Buckeye, Show Rite, and Manna Pro. I personally like Heinold the best, but Purina makes a very good rabbit feed too. You have to be careful with some rabbit feeds. They will keep the percentages the same but vary the ingredients and when they vary the ingredients that isn't good. You can tell by all of the rabbits eating habits changing at once.

A show formula rabbit pellet will do a better job of helping to keep your rabbit lean, but your rabbit may not grow quite as well as it should on it. Especially if you have a larger breed. My favorite to feed is Heinold Feeds 17-17 Family Ration formula. A show formula can sometimes make your rabbit feel a little bony over the back. Either your rabbit is not getting all of the nutrition it needs to grow properly if it feels bony over the back or it is or has been sick at some point.

I've been raising rabbits for over 24 years and my dad and I raise and show New Zealand Whites. Feeding correctly plays a large role in whether you win or not with New Zealands. A fat New Zealand rabbit will get knocked severely in competition and so will a bony one. We've had 24 years to work on getting it right and studying what does and doesn't work, so for us it's like a science.

If you want to use the same feed and help keep them a little leaner you can add more fiber to the diet by giving them a small handful of stemmy hay. Stemmy hays refer to hays like timothy hay and orchard grass hay, where the majority of the hay is made up by the stem of the plant. You want to avoid wide leafed hays like clover hay or alfalfa hay if you are trying to keep your rabbit lean.

A good rule of thumb for feeding rabbits is to feed them just what they will eat in 24 hours. They should barely clean up all of their feed in 24 hours. Keep in mind that if you add a small handful of hay that means you will probably have to slightly decrease the amount of rabbit pellets you give your rabbit. Your rabbit will eat about the same amount in weight of food each day.

For instance, we normally feed our New Zealands 1 cup which equals 6 ounces of feed if weighed on a dietary scale. If I gave my New Zealands a small handful of 2 ounces of hay a day, then I would cut their rabbit pellets back to about 4 ounces a day. So the total weight of food they ate still remains at 6 ounces.


Hope the info helps.

Answer 8

Rabbits respond well to the Atkins diet.

For two weeks you want to fee the little bunny nothing but meat and egss. The little guy may pretend he's not interested in eating this stuff, but don't fall for his clever ruse.

Just keep putting that food out there and in no time your bunny will be as slim as Olive Oil herself.

Answer 9

put little chains on his feet and hang them from your purse

Answer 10

lol, Carrots.