Got a dwarf lop rabbit yesterday, how often do you fill the bowl with pellets?

[Fimbo]

We haven't been over filling the bowl, just enough to cover the surface, but each time we go out, he has eaten the lot. Dd just filled it before she went to school at 8.20 and it is empty again. He has eating hay stuff (sorry don't know the technicals yet!) and plenty of water, should I be refilling the bowl with pellets now?

[billyums]

Bump. I'd like to know too. We got a 9 week mini lop two weeks ago and at first I was doing what you are but his bowl was always empty so now I fill it up but I'm worried I'm over feeding him.

[louby86]

Hi,

We have a baby mini lop who is now 12 weeks old. She was eating everything to start with so we kept topping up her bowl as we thought we weren't feeding her enough. we then found out that we were over feeding her as hay needs to be a massive part of their diet, along with veg after 12 weeks, and pellets are only really complimentary. The problem is most rabbits like the taste of the pellets too much so thats what they eat first. As babies they only need 50g a day, pets at home give out free measuring cups, along with unlimited hay such as timothy hay. Another sign of overgrazing is, sorry tmi, if they are not eating the mucus covered poo that they are supposed to.

Hope that helps a bit, I had to quiz the poor man in the pet shop for ages!!!

[HappyAsASandboy]

It should say on the packet how much to feed each day. I use Science Selective pellets, and give 50g per day per rabbit. I split this into 2 feeds, so each rabbit gets 25g in the morning and 25g at night. They also eat a lot of hay. Hay should be the main part of their diet, so I add new hay every feed and if I notice it is getting low in the day.

If you're new to rabbits, there is a lot of help and advice offered on the Rabbits United forum (google will bring it up. It is associated with the Rabbit Rehomed website). There are lots of discussions, but if you just was a basic 'how to' of rabbits, there is a Rabbit Care section with some well written sticky threads.

I hope you and your rabbit are very happy together

[Fimbo]

Thank you for the responses. Thank you happy will certainly look up that website. The poor bugger seems scared to death of us too, so it will be handy to make sure we are handling him correctly too.