Fat bunny!

Question
Hello,
We recently started showing Dutch bunnies and would like to do one breeding with our two grand champions. My problem is that our doe is FAT. She's a big bunny to start with, but even for her size, she seems to have a little too much belly. I'm going to say she's pushing 5 pounds. She's about nine months now, and gets her pellets (about 1/2 cup a day) hay, and veggies. We've been told that it's hard to get a fat doe pregnant, and I also found something that can happen to exssessivly fat and pregnant does called 'ketoses' or something like that. We've been trying to let her run around to loose weight before breeding.
Do you think she's in danger? Or do you think she's okay? I can attach an image in a follow up question.

Answer
Hi Samantha,

5 pounds is not fat for a Dutch however is she has so much weight that you can't feel her backbone then indeed she needs to be on a diet.  It can be difficult for a doe to breed if she has excessive fat on her ovaries.  However if she is only 9 months old there can't be to much fat accumulated yet.  Try cutting her pellets down to a 1/4 cup and give her unlimited hay.  Timothy or grass hay are empty calories and if they have to many pellets they wont eat the hay.  You can also take a 2x4 and put it directly in the middle of her cage and mount it in there so that it wont fall over.  Put her water on one side and the food on the other.  She will have to jump over it to get to her food and water and this will help tone her muscles.  

I have no experience with rabbits going into ketoacidosis from pregnancy.  I know that it can happen in humans but I have never seen it.  That doesn't mean it doesn't exist but I don't think it is that common.  Personally I would have no problems attempting to breed her.  No matter how safe you are there is always a risk with rabbits giving birth.  Every time you breed any animal you are taking a risk of complications or loss of the babies.  I always tell people that if you can't handle the death of rabbits or baby rabbits that breeding rabbits is not for you.  Although I do not breed anymore in my years of breeding I lost 3 does to complications and had several that needed an emergency spay to survive.  I have had literally thousands of dead babies which is a far more common complication.

Good luck

Pam