NZx Doe, weight issues, ear mites

[Jamie_Dog_Trainer]

I have a New Zealand and Flemish cross doe (3/4 and 1/4 respectively). She is very large and to be honest I am not sure how old she is. I thought she was about 3.5 months but then I remembered the other day the breeder mentioned that they might be around 5 months. In any event I put a call in to him and I am going to make sure I find out her age...

My question is she eats and eats but has actually lost some weight since I brought her home, which was over a week ago. I can easily feel her spine and hip points. She otherwise seems happy and content and she eats lots and lots of hay and 18% Protein good quality pellets, and of course has access to fresh water 24/7.

Any advice for getting some weight on her? Should I be worried about an underlying cause for her low weight? Or should I just give her some more time to adjust and see how she is? Thanks for any input.

Here's a pic of her with my daughter.

 

[dutchhollow]

The one reason meat producers don't use giant breeds (flemish, french lop) is because they spend a lot of time growing bone, and not muscle. She is still growning and it will probably be around 7 months (at least with my french) before she starts to put on much muscle. She doesn't look horrible, just normal for breed/age.

 

[dewey]

Stressed rabbits will lose weight. What type of environment was she used to at the breeders compared to her new environment?

It looks like the flooring is hardward cloth, which can be painful and stressful on them, especially so the large breeds.

If I want to put a rabbit on weight loss diet I offer more hay. How much pellets does she eat every day?

More activity around them than they're used to can stress them. People, animals, predators, etc.

 

[MrsFordTN]

It could be stress, her not filling in yet or medical. I would mix in Oats in her pelleted food and see how that does for her weight. Stress from moving can and will cause rabbits to loss wait, and like it has been said she may just not have filled in completely yet and is still growing.

On a side note, medically there are lots of things rabbits can have/get that causes weight loss, but looking at her I wouldn't worry, but if it continues look into worming her and possibly switching to a more grassy hay. Avoid lots of alfalfa as it is very high in calcium and can cause bladder/kidney stones in mature/maturing rabbits and that will make them drop weight quickly. A bit of alfalfa is fine, as again she is still going.

 

[Jamie_Dog_Trainer]

The environment is quite different than at the breeders. But honestly I would think that my area is much calmer. I suppose it's just stress. The breeder called today and I talked to him about her bony frame and he suggested it was due to her not being filled out totally yet, he also told me she was born in November which would make her about 5.5 months old now. She is quite large with a good amount of bone mass.

Yes she is on hardware cloth flooring, but, until yesterday she also had wood or tile to lay on too to give her feet a break from the wire. My only problem is that she insists on peeing on the tile so its not exactly working as a "bed" for her. I removed the tile for cleaning and I am going to give her a couple days to decide where her potty spot is and then replace the tile in another area and see if that works. Idk.. LOL.

She eats a cup of pellets a day, and would eat more if I gave it to her. I also give all my rabbits free feed timothy hay, of all three of my buns this NZ is the biggest pig of the hay, followed by the satin buck and my d'Argent doe is last -- she hardly eats her hay.

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. I will let you know how she goes.

Edit to add:

JUST discovered that both my d'Argent doe and the NZ doe have ear mites. The NZ doe is very minimal but when I looked closely I could see the scales, but the other doe has them pretty bad, I didn't notice them until now because she's very shy and hides when I try and interact with her. I got her out of the hutch today and put her in an exercise pen and noticed a crusty stuff inside one of her ears.

 

[GallusGal]

Since she has a wire bottomed cage: are you sure she's definitely eating all of the pellets? You're not seeing dust or pellets broken in half dropped undeneath? Whenever a rabbit seems to be eating but starts losing weight, I always check carefully for partially consumed but dropped/discarded pellets, because they tend to do that when they have dental issues. Our Flemish started dropped weight and we THOUGHT she was eating well, but when we got rid of her substrate (hay at the time) we found that she was chewing up but not swallowing most of her pellets because she was having major molar issues. She has put on a ton of weight after getting her teeth ground down. Just a thought!

 

[Jamie_Dog_Trainer]

Thanks GG

I am sure she's eating all of her pellets, I can see all of what falls out of her cage into the container below and I see very very few pellets or anything that resembles bits of pellet. I installed some good feeders that reduce waste too.

I will keep an eye on her. I just got back from Dels Farm and Feed with my ivermectin paste and looked up dosages for rabbits and treated all three of them. I'll be putting some oil in the ears of the two that I can see have the mites. I am hoping with the mites treated my d'Argent might become more friendly and active. I had all three of them out in exercise pens today and they all had a blast. It was fun to see them getting some environmental enrichment.

 

[dewey]

Ivermectin also kills mites.

 

[Jamie_Dog_Trainer]

Yep thats what I got: ivermectin paste

Gave them all a dose and tomorrow I will try some oil in their ears to clear the scales and debris

 

[dutchhollow]

sounds like you are on top of things. If she is emptying her bowl of pellets you might want to feed her more of them. Hay doesn't offer much in the way of growth, just good for the gut. Once she is done growing you can (and will want to) cut back on the pellets.