Choking scare

[Waffles505]

Hi my name is Kira and I have a beautiful 3 year old female rabbit named Waffles and tonight I had the most terrifying experience of my life. I gave waffles her food dish of pellets tonight and pretty soon after she made this terrifying choking/vomiting noise. She then looked very scared and i started to hear this loud clicking noise anytime I would see her stomach move up and down to breath. She became still for a very long while, except for when she would thump every couple of seconds, and refused to drink any water. Eventually the clicking subsided and she started to eat again very tentatively and slowly. She still won't drink anything though, I managed to get her to take two sips of water before she completely refused. She is moving about now though ( a little slower than normally) and is eating again. I don't have an emergency vet clinic in my area that will look at rabbits (the closest is 5 hours away and I don't even have a car.) It seems as if she is okay now but I am still so so scared about what happened.

Has this happened to anyone else? Any advice? I definitely won't be able to sleep tonight because I will be watching her relentlessly.


Thanks!

 

[Sophie's Humble Servant]

Does she eat her pellets really quickly? If so, you could give them to her so she has to work at them, like in a treat ball. She won't be able to wolf them down so fast then.

Btw welcome to the forum. Sorry you had such a scare! Hope your bunny is ok

 

[Waffles505]

Thanks for the tip! I'll definitely try that in the future. She seems fine now, definitely acting like her old self. I'm still going to watch her all night though and take her to the vet as soon as I can.

 

[JBun]

I'm glad your bun seems to be doing alright. If this were to ever happen again in the future, there is a technique that can be used for choking in rabbits, for emergency situations only. Hopefully this won't ever happen again with your bun though.
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Rabbits-703/pet-rabbit-gagging-Rabbit.htm

I'm glad you'll be taking your bun in for a check up with the vet. It's pretty important to do after a choking episode, as sometimes a rabbit can breath in fluids or food particles, which carries a risk of them developing aspiration pneumonia. Your bun may not have done this and may be just fine, but it's always good to have your vet rule it out.

 

[Azerane]

There's also a version with photos on bunspace that I happened across just yesterday in fact: http://www.bunspace.com/groups/topic?tid=9871

 

[PaGal]

I am glad to know this. I always worry about Thumper because he goes crazy when fed his pellets and eats them so quickly. Even if I spread them out on the ground he does not slow down.