Hello Pam, I will try and condense her story down, hopefully it sheds some light.
She is about 3 and a half years old. In January this year I had been visiting a family in the neighbourhood who I caregive for their mentally challenged daughter, and they had two rabbits belonging to a family member that was living there. They were starving and living in their own filth, in seperate outdoor hutches. I threatened calling the SPCA on them, either that or they handed the rabbits over which they did eventually. 31 days later the doe gives birth (what a shock). 10 weeks later the buck dies, not sure if it was because of his previous life or what but he was so much better by then (old age? they got him when he was already old). 31 days after he dies she gives birth AGAIN! I suspect either he manged to mate with her through the bars or someone thought it would be funny to put them together.
This litter of 7 has all been weaned a week ago. She has always had a huge dewlap but as she had such a bad start to life I am not sure what would be a normal body condition for her. Her coat has finally gotten to be plush and silky soft after 6 months of having her. She has never been fat. She was being fed with grass and unlabled pellets from a bulk buy store. I have her on a good feed now, supplemented by grass and puha (a New Zealand weed that rabbits go crazy for, even people boil it and eat it), the occasional bit of carrot etc, and every day she is let out of her hutch for a run around the lawn and a dig in the garden. Her ribcage seems wider since the litters, that maks it feel sharper.
Her stomach skin feels firm but the front half of her body seems fleshy and saggy?
We also don't have access to the type of rabbit foods that you have available in the US. She eats a brand called PCL which are meant for meat rabbits but it was the best thing I could find (apart from one type of pellet that I think was Oxbow? It was $32 for a 3.5 pound bag). PCL is not as high in protein as the other meat rabbit feed at the farm supply store and has less fat and more fibre and vitamens. It's also only $1- for a 20 pound bag. She doesn't eat many pellets anyway, she mosly eats grass and bits of the apple tree, and she loves rolled oast so I give her a few to nibble on in the morning. She gets a heck of a lot of exercise so I think she burns up all her energy doing that.
