bugsy

[3Xgranny]

I have a rabbit long hair, white. Do they continue to grow hair. I cut his, it was so long. What do they eat? He was eating bananas, carrots, grass, rabbit pellets while in the cage, but now I have him in a cage, on sand, and he hardly eats anything. I am worried. What should his appetite be like? And what are some other foods I can try, he does not like celery. He does eat some lettece.

 

[sylviethecochin]

Skip lettuce. It can give them liver spots, and doesn't provide much in the way of nutrition anyway. He might like spinach (or the wild equivalent: dandelion leaves), carrot-tops, beet greens, grass and hay. Hay is really good for their digestion. Carrot slices and apples are treats to be fed in limited quantities. I limited pellets when I had rabbits, others free-feed them.

Like most animals, rabbits stop growing hair, then start shedding it, then re-grow it.

Have fun with your bunny.

 

[Bunnylady]

I have a rabbit long hair, white. Do they continue to grow hair.

If you shave or pluck them, the hair starts to grow back immediately (actually, if the rabbit can be plucked, the hair was already in the process of being shed and growing back). If all you did was a little trim, it might not have been enough to start the regrowth. Some rabbits shed almost continuously (bad), some shed pretty much all at once (good, especially in longhairs), some can start shedding as a result of temperature fluctuations or other triggers (hugely frustrating for people who show).

Almost anyone who knows what they are talking about will tell you that a rabbit should only get a certain amount of pellets in a day (for an adult, the usual rule of thumb is an ounce of pellets per pound of body weight per day). Some rabbits will naturally limit themselves to about that amount, but no rabbit should be allowed to snarf pellets to the point of obesity. With longhairs, it often goes the other way - getting them to eat enough to keep the weight on can get tricky. Rabbits groom themselves, like cats do, and in doing so inevitably swallow a certain amount of hair. This hair can collect in the stomach, just like in cats, but unlike cats, rabbits cannot vomit up the hairballs when they form. If a hairball gets big enough, it can leave little room for food, and the rabbit eats less and less. It can even lead to a condition called wool block, where the whole digestive system gets shut down completely.

All rabbits need a certain amount of fiber in their diets to keep their digestive systems working properly, but this is absolutely critical with longhairs. Lots of fiber in the diet can help get the hair moving on through the digestive system, keeping it from collecting in the first place. You really, really need to get high-fiber foods (like hay) into him. To try to break up hairballs as they try to form, some people will feed things like papaya and pineapple, which have enzymes that dissolve proteins. Papaya and pineapple can only be fed in small quantities, though, because of their high sugar content. They are available dried, and can be fed as treats (most rabbits love them!) or you can buy the enzymes (papain and bromelain) in tablet form - most rabbits like them, too.