Bunny Questions

[Kailex]

I have a approx 4 month old French angora rabbit, she's normally very happy and always excited to see anyone who walks in the cage, and is always begging for more greens. Normally she digs right into her food bowl and we have to give her more pellets everytime we walk into the shed, but today she's not interested as much in the pellets, she's eating the leafs i offer her and i offered her a pellet and she took it, and ate one or two out of her dish, but she's just not as interested as normal, I also noticed she has a bit of a watery eye. I am a new bunny owner, so I'm not too sure what is normal and whats a warning sign. We also got two new bunny's due to one dying and so the new male rabbit we got has a lot of mats so my mom has been paying a lot of attention to him, and I think Pebbles might be feeling a bit left out, could that cause any problems? She doesn't seem to be in any pain or anything, but i'm a paranoid pet owner, as I hate them being in pain or uncomfortable without knowing how to treat them.

 

[mdith4him]

Is she pooping? If you notice that she's not pooping or that her poops are a lot smaller than usual, that's a sign that things are wrong. Is her eye watering or has it started to develop some crustiness around it?

Our rabbit, Crispin, just got back from a hospital stay. He wasn't eating and his poops were small. It happened suddenly (morning and afternoon he was fine, by evening he was clearly not right). We took him to the vet quickly and they said he had developed GI stasis. That can be deadly for rabbits if left untreated. Rabbits often times hide their pain until it's too late. I would see a vet today if you think their might be something wrong. I feel like it's better safe than sorry.

 

[Kailex]

Well we cleaned their cages yesterday, and there is poop in her cage, so it looks like she is pooping, I went and checked on her just now and she's eating some of the pellets, and she ate another leaf, and was eating some hay, her eye doesn't look watery at all anymore, so for all I know it might have been just some water that dripped on her from her water bottle, we're going to let her run around in a bit, which she really enjoys, so hopefully that does something.

 

[Kailex]

and also, i don't know if this means anything- we decided to start litter training them yesterday, and I think she may have eaten some of the bedding stuff we put in the tray, the lady at the pet store told us to get this pine chip bedding, but I was reading online that was not good for them, so I took that out of her hut immediately, and we also gave them kale for the first time yesterday- could that not have agreed with her?

 

[mdith4him]

Yes, everything I've read says no pine chips for bedding. I believe it causes respiratory issues. Try something like Care Fresh, Yesterday's News, or other beddings that are paper based. Some people use a type of wood pellet, but I forget exactly what it is.

Introducing veggies can sometimes cause diarrhea in young bunnies or if you give them too much of something new too fast. Give little bits of new veggies at a time and slowly increase how much you give. Kale should be okay, but I've read that too much kale can be too much calcium for them. It's usually listed in the "small amounts only" category on veggie lists for bunnies.

How did your running around time go? It's good that she's pooping and eating. Be sure she's getting plenty of hay and water.

 

[Kailex]

She seems completely back to normal, shes knocking over her food dish, jumping up on the cage, i think she was just feeling a little left out to be honest, after my mom gave her a lot of attention she returned back to her normal self.

 

[mdith4him]

Yay! Glad to hear