Rabbit food... from the Twilight Zone!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

An associate of mine asked me to mind his rabbits for a few days. Diverse and convoluted instructions followed regarding the minutiae of proper rabbit care and psychological well-being. I remain dubious that rabbits are such sensitive organisms as to require so many elaborate maintenance rituals, but whatever. This guy is clearly the rabbit equivalent of a cat lady.

Concerning the feeding of rabbits, he pointed out a measuring cup and advised that each rabbit be fed exactly 150 g of bunny chow per day. Furthermore, he cautioned that each rabbit’s food trough should first be emptied of excess food from the day before.

I asked if the troughs also needed to be washed between feedings. “No,” he replied; “Just empty out the excess food each day.”

Does rabbit food go bad that quickly? I asked.

Not exactly. He explained that each rabbit could only have 150g per day, per vet’s order. If a rabbit didn’t eat its full ration, and it were left in the trough for the next day, then that rabbit would be getting more than 150g of food that next day, which would be bad.

Why? I asked. What happens if a rabbit eats, say, 200g in a day? Do they explode?

“No,” he explained patiently. “But after a while, they will get fat.”

…

Um.

What?

“Look, it’s very simple,” he said. “If a rabbit only eats 100g today, then 50g will be left in the trough for tomorrow. So when you feed that rabbit its ration tomorrow, it will be getting 200g of food. 200g is more than 150g, right? So the rabbit would get too fat on that diet. See?”

I attempted for several minutes to explain how insane this is. I used analogy and metaphor, crudely sketched diagrams, improvised sign language, and a minor exegesis on the principle of conservation of mass. All to no avail. He left still adamant in the belief that rabbits can increase their weight by not eating food yesterday.

“That’s the way the vet explained it to me,” he said with finality. So I am confronted with the possibility that the vet is either as nuts as he is, or else has an exceedingly subtle and wicked sense of humor.

I can’t help but think that there’s an excellent basis for a practical joke here, along the lines of the classic growing goldfish prank, if I only had the resources for it. Maybe when he gets back, the rabbits could all be half-sized. I could tell him that I mistakenly fed them tomorrow’s food ration today, which caused them to start aging backward.

Or I could tell him that the rabbits were so upset at his absence that they only ate half the previous day’s food ration each day, until eventually they approached zero mass and flew south for the winter.

2

Rabbits are extremely fragile pets. If something goes bad with them, it kind of snowballs - fast. I bet he was just trying to make sure that did not happen.

3

Oh I have no doubt of his concern for their well-being, and the rabbits appear very healthy and well cared for.

But regardless of how fragile rabbits are, I maintain that it should not be possible for them to get any fatter by eating less food.

4

So the rabbit is given 150g of food and eats only 100, but when given 200g it will happily scarf down every last bite? Even if it did, that’s still 300g in 2 days.

Certainly it’s his pet, his rules. But that logic’s a little rough around the edges.

5

I heard somewhere (book or vet, I’m not sure) that the reason for removing leftover food is because rabbits have a tendency to eat until they get sick.

6

:confused: But if that were the case, there wouldn’t have been any leftover food in the first place.

7

I have two rabbits and I have always just filled their food bin as necessary. They are the same size they always have been, and are healthy. Rabbits do have very fragile digestive systems, but that is particularly in regards to what fresh foods you give them.

I have a third rabbit in Florida, Flander could elaborate on this because he has her now, but she is more apt to not eat if stressed. When she moved from Miami to Stuart, FL she didn’t eat for days, poor thing.

8

Not really. My dog rarely leaves food in his bowl, but he does it sometimes. He has at other times managed to eat enough ( usually by being successful at begging table scraps, although there was that time he knocked over a quart of lo mein ) to cause vomiting.Rabbits don’t vomit, so I imagine a too-full stomach might cause some other problem.

9

Rabbits don’t fill up eating their own poo either.:slight_smile:

10

Actually, they do. In fact, they have to. :stuck_out_tongue:

11

That part squicked my mother out when my brother bought her a rabbit for Mother’s Day. Oh, she adored the little furball, and spoiled it outrageously, but she did NOT want to know about the recycling thing.

12

When he said to “empty out” the leftover food each day, did he mean throw it away or to just put it in the measuring cup and add more until you reach the recommended amount of food? To throw it out just seems wasteful.

13

Do fat rabbits taste better?