How to get one rabbit to lose weight with a bonded mate

[nuttymeg]

I know the title might seem stupid,but i have a mom and daughter who are bonded. Mom is VERY overweight,you can feel fat pockets on her shoulders etc. My debate is how can i lessen her food intake when shes bonded with her daughter. My debate is either one is going to eat all the food and the other gets nothing. How the heck am i going to get mom in a proper body condition? I thought her weight issue was due to the fact she had cystic ovaries and had a mammary cyst,cyst was removed a couple of months ago,and she was spayed at the same time. Yet shes still gaining weight,english angora and is weighing in at 8 pounds 10 ounces. And she is very small framed,she should be around 6 pounds.

Any ideas how i can safely get her weight down?

 

[Blue eyes]

What is their normal diet?

 

[nuttymeg]

they are on timothy hay,alfala pellets(angora requirement for protein) mixed greens occasional boss seeds.

 

[JBun]

Definitely stop the seeds to the overweight rabbit. The high fat content is just going to increase weight gain. That might be enough to start some weight loss, depending on how much is usually fed and how often. If not much or very often, you're probably going to need to reduce pellet amounts, or change to a timothy based pellet, as it's excess protein from the pellets that's causing the obesity. To reduce one rabbits pellets and not the other, you would need to separate during pellet feeding time.