Female rabbit not fixed, not pregnant, tight abdomen?

[doodlebugger]

Our female mini rex has always been overweight. We have fought a battle to get her down to regular weight. We realized she was getting too many pellets. She gets daily greens and unlimited timothy hay already. She probably doesn't need the pellets, but we give them because otherwise she acts like she is starving (she was given to us already started on the pellets, so we kept her on them since she was little).

She has always had strange wet cecals, frequently, some she doesn't eat, but the rest of her poos are normal otherwise. She has not been fixed, as we were waiting to get her weight under control to do that. She is kept in a separate cage and has no contact with other rabbits, so there is no chance of pregnancy. She is about three years old.

In the last week, we have noticed that she looks like she is putting the weight back on. She seems like she has a tight abdomen - almost like she has gas? But she acts normal, eats and drinks normally, and doesn't seem out of character. We tried some probiotics, tried limiting her pellets again, giving her extra exercise, etc. We also tried the infant gas drops (simethicone?), in the event it's gas. When she is in her exercise pen, she acts totally normal - binkying around, playing, etc. There is just no unusual behavior to have me concerned except that her abdomen seems tight or bloated, but not all the time. Sometimes it seems normal.

Should I cut back dramatically on pellets and greens, and just let her eat hay and water for a few days to see if the stomach issue goes away, or should I just take her to our vet? I'm afraid I won't be able to get her an appointment until Thursday evening.

I'm beginning to worry that it could be uterine cancer? How do they diagnose that, and if it is, will they recommend putting her to sleep? :dunno

 

[missyscove]

Have you weighed her? Were you feeling her abdomen before and have definitely noticed a change? Some animals will tense up when you attempt to palpate their abdomens so what you're feeling may or may not be abnormal. A bloated rabbit typically feels like they've swallowed a basketball, but if she's still eating and defecating normally I wouldn't suspect that.
A vet checkup may definitely be in order, at least for some peace of mind on your part, but if she's eating, drinking, urinating and defecating normally I wouldn't consider it an emergency visit.
Does she have any abnormal discharge?
Regardless of what's going on with her, even if she does develop something with a poor prognosis typically euthanasia isn't considered until the quality of life begins to suffer, and from your description it sounds like she has a great quality of life!

 

[squidpop]

I think if she is an adult and overweight you probably should cut the pellets way back over the course of several days, and feed more timothy hay, regardless, until she loses some weight. I would probably still feed the greens unless they are high in sugar or protein, am thinking they probably aren't putting much weight on her and its more likely to be the pellets. That said, some greens I think, are richer than others so maybe you could research to find lower calorie greens.

I also think you should probably just go ahead and get her spayed, if she does have any cancer or pre cancer that is probably what the vet will do anyway, and if she doesn't have cancer it will keep her from getting cancer.

Also, how many pellets do you feed her and what brand? Some brands are higher in fat than others. If you are not already feeding Oxbow you might look into that because they are higher in fiber and lower in fat.

 

[JBun]

If you don't feel like the distended belly is just from gaining weight, and it seems abnormally distended and tight, I agree with having her checked by a good rabbit vet right away. There are some health problems that can cause a distended abdomen when it isn't a case of gas and bloat. Some of these health problems can be very serious such as hepatic coccidiosis or uterine cancer, so not something to put off if you feel like this isn't just some weight gain. You may need to have a fecal float test done to rule out hepatic coccidiosis, blood tests, and possibly xrays. If it is uterine cancer and it hasn't spread, they can spay her which will get rid of the cancer. It is possible it is just bloating from gas, but usually if the gas is severe enough to distend the abdomen, it also causes a rabbit to stop eating and they will be very sick.

It's also possible the wet cecals are tied into this, or it could be a diet issue. Sometimes pellets or even veggies can cause this to occur. If the wet cecals are due to a diet problem, you can try cutting out a food(not the hay) to see if it is causing the wet cecals.


Sorry your thread was missed and we got to this late. I hope your bun is still doing well and you can get the problem figured out if you haven't already.

 

[doodlebugger]

Wow....got really busy and never updated this! Sorry!

She went to our rabbit savvy vet, and she said that she thought maybe she had some pain or was just scared and was tensing up. She showed me how to tell the difference, but she is concerned about her high risk for uterine cancer. She won't do the surgery until she loses some more weight though. She said it is too risky at this point. So, we are cutting back on pellets, gradually (because if we don't, it can cause fatty liver or something like that?) and as soon as she reaches the right weight in another month or so, we will get her fixed. The one thing that she did find while we were there is that she had a lot of stuff built up around her backside. Some of it's from her scent glands, and some of it was from the wet cecal poops. Since that visit, she has only done it once, and now I think it was really her tensing up when we touched her. She is our little scaredy cat! LOL

We feed her Purina Rabbit Chow (http://www.purinamills.com/rabbits/products/purina-rabbit-chow-complete-wholesome/) and we were feeding her unmeasured, just kind of filling her bowl as needed, and now she is getting about 1/4 cup in the morning and 1/4 in the evening. She gets fresh greens and unlimited timothy hay. We have tried transitioning to Oxbow and she absolutely refused to eat it! She would pick out the Purina and leave the rest behind. The vet said to just stick with what we know she will eat for now. Since we cut back on the pellets, she isn't have the big wet poo problems as much, but still having them. The vet seemed unconcerned about it right now since it's not frequent. Thanks for all the advice!!!