Rabbit advice needed on diet please. Thanks?

My pet house rabbit is now 16/17 weeks old. He usually has pellets, fresh water and as much hay as he wants daily. He has had a couple of rabbit treats over the past week.





Today he has managed to escape from his hutch and has munched on banana %26amp; orange out of the fruit bowl (left apple %26amp; pineapple) he has eaten a few leafs from my house plant (Madagascian dragon tree) a few pieces of chocolate out of the selection box he demolished, as well as my electric bill and a pair of shoe laces. He also peed on every chair of a leather settee. Ate/shredded tinsel and managed to get some baubles off tree!





He is fine and doesnt seem to be ill in fact he is extremely lively or is he hiding any potential illness?. Should i now be introducing fruits veg to his diet? I thought he wouldnt/shouldnt eat chocolate? I have phoned the vet and left message but he has not got back to me so thought would ask here. He has not had any vaccinations yet either as booked in next week. Thanks for your advice

Rabbit advice needed on diet please. Thanks?
You are very lucky. Sounds like he's okay :) Consider giving him hay only for the next two days so he can push out any tinsel or whatever he may have ingested. Hay only poops will be lighter in color than normal and it's perfectly okay to give him just hay for two days then put him back on his pellets.





Your little guy is JUST old enough to have "greens" by my rules (4 months). Don't over do it as it can cause enteritis which is the #1 killer of baby bunnies. At his age he should be able to handle it. Just introduce them slowly.





Give 1 inch of banana, 1 slice of apple, 1 strawberry, 1 small leaf of dark green lettuce, 1 baby carrot, 1 or two carrots tops or parsley sprigs, etc, etc, but NOT all those at once. One treat 3 times a week is enough. Keep giving pellets in a measured amount that your rabbit can finish off in 1 hour and all the hay and water he wants. You don't want a fat rabbit. Lean is best for his health. Just so long as you can't feel the vertebrae in his spine, he's good.





Sounds like he's reached toddlerhood and you'd really better keep close tabs on him and rabbit-proof you house to keep him safe. Put latches on cabinet doors, keep cords out of the way or cover them with tubing. I supervise our rabbits whenever they are running around the house. For goodness sake, NO chocolate, tinsel, Christmas trees, ornaments, or house plants! lol.





Don't know anything about vaccinations needed in your country. Rabbits in the U.S.A don't need any.
Reply:THe following may help you
Reply:lol hes probly lively from all the chocolate hes ate! i cant see why fruit would do him any harm, its good for us, so i guess it cant be bad for rabbits.
Reply:the fruits are prefectly ok for him to eat!!!!!! a bit much at once but he should be fine. as for the plant i'm not farmiliar with it, but i don't recognized it as being poisoness. diet wise i would provide 1/2 cup of pellet per 5 pounds of body weight. 1 daily!!!!!! hay all the time( grass hay not alfalfa) and of course water all the time, you can also give a large handful of greens everyday! i feed this same diet 2 all 20 of my rabbits, and have had no health problems with it, one more tip introduce the greens slowly
Reply:I think if he is acting and especially EATING normally then he is fine. Rabbits chew on some weird stuff sometimes and that's okay. My two made a warren basically in two of my stuffed chairs! (luckily they were cheap chairs).


But ...i need to tell you...if he slows down AT ALL...as in he stops eating, or you go to give him a treat that you know he loves and he doesn't accept it, then yes. something is wrong. and you don't wait to see what happens. If a vet sends you home with some probiotic and tells you to sit on it then they are an idiot. (i lost a rabbit this way, and the good exotic vet that I took him to probably could have saved him if I had brought him there FIRST). so not eating is a big problem, as is lethargy. usually as they are not eating you will also notice them just kind of sitting there like a lump. This means immediate (good) rabbit vet that may have to do surgery to remove the block.


But. it sounds like your rabbit is acting normally so everything is fine. hope this helps.





one last thing, it's good that you are providing the hay at all times, as this is something that helps in terms of keeping their little systems running and preventing blockages. (timothy hay)
Reply:Your rabbit may or may not be fine. Just keep a close watch on how your rabbit eats and also keep an eye out for whether your rabbit exhibits signs of diarrhea (a lot of soft stool, or poop stuck underneath the rabbit around its rear end). As another person mentioned also watch the body language of the rabbit. If you see it constantly hunched in a corner and not acting like regular then something is probably wrong. If so, you'll probably see a decrease or stoppage in the amount of pellets your rabbit eats.





As far as the dangers from what your rabbit ate, there are a few I'd be concerned about:





1. The tinsel could possibly later become an obstruction in the rabbit's intestines. If it does, your rabbit will stop eating and will probably also stop pooping.





2. The chocolate or plant leaves could possibly be poisonous. If you haven't seen any bad signs in the first few hours your rabbit is probably ok in that regards.





3. Fruits and vegetables are high in sugars and can cause diarrhea in rabbits. I do not recommend feeding them because they can make your rabbit fat and can also risk giving your rabbit diarrhea. They can be given in limited amount, but if you give too much, especially to a young rabbit or a rabbit during summer you risk diarrhea. The rabbit pellets are specifically developed by animal nutritionists to be a balanced diet for the rabbit. Adding fruits and vegetables to their diet can throw off that balance. Although fruits and vegetables are good for humans, you have to remember that rabbits are not humans and therefore require a different type of diet. To rabbits, if you gave them too much fruits or vegetables it would be like loading kids up on a lot of sweets. They get fat and don't get the proper nutrition they need. It reminds me of one lazy friend that stayed at my place for a week. He ate nothing but ice cream and salsa for about a day or so then wondered why he felt bad and had diarrhea. I was like, "Duh! What do you think will happen when all you eat is Salsa and Ice Cream?!"





As far as vaccinations, if you live in the US, no vaccinations are required for rabbits and really there is no reason to give a rabbit any vaccinations. The rabbit should normally be penned up and will normally not come into contact with any other animals. As far as I know, there is no rabbit disease that is communicable to humans except for I believe one in Australia that was created by humans to help control the wild rabbit population in Australia. I don't think there has even been a recorded case of a domestic rabbit having rabies. If you live in Europe then your rabbit may require a few vaccinations.





As far as the hay, that is fine to feed your rabbit. I'd recommend keeping it to a small handful though. Some people say to free-feed hay. But I disagree with that notion. The rabbit pellets contain certain vitamins and minerals that the rabbit needs for a balanced diet. If your rabbit eats too much hay it may not get quiet the amount of minerals and vitamins that it needs. Also hay is not as high in protein as the rabbit feed is and may not provide the nourishment the rabbit needs if it is growing if its diet primarily consists of just hay by eating the hay and avoiding the pellets.





Many of the rabbit feeds on the market have been developed through years of research and by people who went to college specifically majoring in animal nutrition. I don't know more than a doctor does regarding medicine so I don't tell the doctor how to perform his surgeries. People that have only raised a few rabbits should not assume they know more than the animal nutritionists that developed the rabbit feeds and in a way try telling them how to do their job.





Stick to the pellets and water. A small handful of hay is good. The fiber from the hay helps prevent diarrhea. I recommend a stemmy hay like timothy hay. It is higher in fiber than alfalfa or clover.





Good luck with your rabbit. Keep a watchful eye on it for the next 3 days to a week. If you don't see any problems in a week, then I'd say you are in the clear.
Reply:your rabbit sounds a funny charactor.


here is a very good website. it has about what fruit and vegetables they can and can't have as well other bits to do with diet and rabbit care.


i hope this helps like it helped me.


www.rabbit-food.co.uk
Reply:Chocolate is a no-no for all animals as it contains things which are toxic to them.





At 17 weeks he is perhaps a little young to be eating fresh fruit (which should only be a treat as it is high in sugar) and veg. The tinsel may or may not cause problems; the laces %26amp; bill will not harm him. I'm not sure of the plant - I have no house plants and would only have bunny-safe flowers if I did such as marigold, nasturtium and rose.





Keep an eye on him %26amp; if he stops defecating or eating then please take him straight to your vet.
Reply:Definately have your vet make the decission, but its a good sign if he is having fun, he is ok, but, if it was my bunny, I would definately take him to get checked out at the very least peace of mind.


Here is a good website regarding diet....


http://www.adoptarabbit.org/articles.htm...
Reply:Make sure you dont let him escape again.





It wouId be a variety in his diet to introduce fruit %26amp; veg and that would probably be more nutritional than pellets.
Reply:can't read whole question! isn't really a question ?
Reply:hey vets advice is better den mine


but


if he seems lively then after a couple of hours i wount wrry too much -get checked at vet tho x
Reply:my rabbit has done all of the above before, and he's fine. he's done this a few times, and he's been ok, just make sure you don't let him have too much fruit and veg, or it will give him an upset stomach. other than that, he should be fine. if you're worried, keep an eye on him, and if he seems to be acting different, take him to the vets as soon as you can.
Reply:He should be ok, thte only thing really dangerous there is the chocolate, even tiny ammounts can make him poorly. Try feeding him a little more food, he should have a around a handfull and a half of rabbit mix and then i tend to give him a bit of carrot. Carrry on with the hay and fresh water. The treats are fine as long as they are specially designed for rabbits. Try keeping him in a more secure place or a safer room apart from the kitchen as the rabbit hates the smell. Do not disturb him when he is pooing as most of this stuff needs to come out of his body. Hope this helps :)



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