Help with new Lionhead buck

We bought a new pointed white Lionhead buck tonight. He was super matted and his nails were terrible. :x I got his nails trimmed, super easy. Sweet little guy he is just laid there for me to do it. Now when I got to his matting it was another story. Took me almost 1 hour to get all of them out. :evil: i will have to check again to make sure i did not miss any either. While he was great about getting them taken care of I noticed he seems pretty skinny. I can feel his spine very easily. What can I give him to help get him to a better weight? He is 2.04 right now which is a little less than his parents were. I gave him a bowl of pellets (they were feeding 14% and I feed 16%), along with a nice supply of hay to enjoy. I ended up going back and adding in a teaspoon or 2 of oats to his feed. Would adding in BOSS help very much? With his sweet personality I just could not let him go back home with the previous owners. While some people can care for (and do it very well) 60+ rabbits, these people clearly could not.
Poor boy does not have a name yet either. I will try to get some pictures up of him later today. Any help with a name would be greatly appreciated so we can get to calling him something other than little boy.

Don't be in a rush to put weight on him. You want him to slowly gain muscle tissue and not just fat.

Keep him inside as skiny animals have a difficult time keeping warm and loose weight trying to thermoregulate, i would give him a little house and some straw or hay bedding as well.

Feeding an even higher protein (18%) will help build muscle, feeding oats will add muscle and fat and adding BOSS will just and fat. I would keep feeing a bit of extra oats and wait until he gets a bit more beefy before giving him some BOSS to improve coat and help him maintain body temperature.

We named our skinny cat Marvin - short for " Starvin' Marvin "from an episode of South Park

Dood, right now we have him in a medium sized hutch outdoors. I want to say it is 2ft x 2ft plus the area that is built into it for nesting purposes. I filled that part up pretty well with a timothy/alfalfa hay mix to help keep him nice and warm. He seems to like this little area the most although I have seen him out in the area where you can see him that he potties in. It looks like he ate a little of his pellets and picked out some of the oats I gave him. I did add about 1 tsp of BOSS to him but I don't think he ate any. I definitely do not want him to gain quickly. My guess is since he came from a smaller breeding pair he will be smaller than all my other Lionheads for that sole reason. I want to say he will probably only need to gain a few ounces to fill out how he should be. I am hoping this will be able to be accomplished before winter heads in. Never know what the weather will be like here in Ohio it seems lately.

At the moment it is looking like his new name is going to be Prince since he is being treated like a prince compared to how he was treated before.

I had a similar experience with my main buck Jose. When I got him his coat felt like total crap and there was some matting. He also was on the thin side. After giving him constant food he put on some weight. His coat also went from horrible to super soft. I joke that his super soft coat is why all the ladies lift for him lol. It's not much of a leap to think that anyone that is caring for their rabbit in such a way that their coat is badly matted is probably not keeping up with food and water. I think a high quality feed and hay will do wonders for your buck. I do like giving rabbits BOSS in small quantities though. When I added BOSS to my rabbits diet I noticed improved looking coats in some but not all of them. Most of the rabbits love them.

Update.....So I noticed the little man is not eating nearly as much pellets as all of my other Lionheads do but seems to love to eat his hay. Should this be ok for now until he chooses to eat more on his own or do I need to try something else? We have given him apple (did a few licks then would not touch again), a slice of banana (nibbled a few times then did not touch again), a dandelion (again a few nibbles and did not touch again), I also gave him a timothy wafer with a very light coating of strawberry jam on it and he licked it and took maybe 2 nibbles then did not touch again. When we added some oats and BOSS into his feed he picked them out but did not eat them.
I weighed him last night and he is still at the same weight that he was the day I got him so he must be getting enough nutrients to keep his weight at least which is a plus since he weighs 2.05 pounds which is a smidgen higher than when we got him.

amandainohio24":sqkaif6t said:

We have given him apple, a slice of banana, a dandelion, I also gave him a timothy wafer with a very light coating of strawberry jam on it and he licked it and took maybe 2 nibbles then did not touch again. When we added some oats and BOSS into his feed he picked them out but did not eat them.

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I think you are "killing him with kindness". He is trying to test the new foods by taking a nibble here and there to make sure they are safe and also give time to develop the right gut flora to digest them. But, since he is "barely eating", you keep trying new things to see if you can find something he really likes and will eat a lot of, but he doesn't trust the new foods yet.

I think you would be better off waiting until he eagerly eats one thing before offering something new.

Would it be best if I just left him with the hay since he really likes that and his pellets? Also, should probably clarify, the foods that I gave him that he nibbled were left with him for 24 hours. He only nibbled when they were first placed with him then completely ignored. For me, it would be great if he only wanted his pellets and hay since that is all the others get.

Pellets and hay are perfectly fine as a regular diet.

I just feed my mini lops just pellets (15%). Sometimes hay. I give about 6 pellets of Show Bloom. If they are given greens, it's from my own personal herb garden so I know that haven't been sprayed with harmful products. Even then, it's only a leaf/segment of basil, mint,etc every once in a while. I usually give cheerios as a treat. I don't want to throw off their gut. I would just keep it simple with him. Let him settle in, keep him on pellets, hay, and a sprinkle of oats because those are plain and good. I'd keep him on a 15-16% protein feed and slowly (if you wish to) reach 18%. Seems a little bit too "hot" to give him right away.

I have recently taken in a little foundling, a holland lop buck found hopping down the road in the middle of the night. He was also underweight, so I started him on a lower protein pellet and meadow hay. After several days I started adding alfalfa, some 18% pellets, and about a teaspoon of calf manna. It's been a few weeks, and he seems to be pretty much up to weight, going by how his body feels.