Feeding Juniors and Seniors

[Desert Rose Rabbits]

When do you change your feeding rations? Right now my growouts are on an all you can eat buffet style feeding regimine. I'm getting ready to select who I'm keeping and who I'm not and was curious when you guys would suggest rationed feeding? Right now, the oldest is just shy of 14 weeks old.

 

[akane]

I only ration feeding if the rabbit starts to get fat. Which 99% of my rabbits had no trouble on free choice feed their entire lives. We do have really rich hay though that they prefer over pellets. The 2 that got fat were single kits who ate all they wanted off mom and were pudgy since before they could walk. We fought with weight issues on them throughout their lives.

 

[Desert Rose Rabbits]

You know... I have one rabbit who I got when he was young and I've always free fed him and even at almost 6 months old he still regulates himself and has a perfectly trim body. All of my other adult rabbits will eat until they get sick. I wonder if the simple act of holding back food causes the need to ration.

 

[akane]

When I first got champagnes and made my first colony they came up with some creative ways to get a hold of unlimited pellets and eat pounds of them. I also underestimated rabbits and tried to leave the feed bags in the colony pen one night only to find bags ripped open and about half a bag gone in to 2 rabbits. After 4-6 months though and all their offspring being free fed pellets and hay they stopped eating pellets like they were starving to death and started eating hay with a small amount of pellets by themselves. A hopper would last days instead of minutes but their hay rack needed filled daily. Everything I've bought since then was young or breeding so they were free fed from the time they got here.