Getting back to normal after GI stasis?

[MarshaMarshaMarsha]

Hi Everyone,

I got my first ever rabbit ,Marsha, in June. She's a 13-month old all white lionhead. Last Sunday night, she ate a few strips of a reusable plastic grocery bag (the kind you can buy, not a regular plastic bag). Monday morning, she hadn't gone to the bathroom any, so we went to the vet. They saw the plastic on the x-ray, and said she had a partial obstruction. The vet kept her overnight on sub-q, syringe feeding, and medication, and she came home the next afternoon. They did an x-ray the 2nd day and said the plastic had cleared her stomach, and that this was a really good thing.

We brought her home Tuesday night with Laxatone, Mylicon, and Oxbow Critical Care. She was doing well, but on Saturday, she wasn't eating much hay, so I took her back in to the vet. The vet said that she Marsha was doing fine, her tummy felt and sounded great, and she was alert and playing, but not quite as much as normal. She said we could stop giving her the mylicon, since she didn't feel any gas. The vet also said it could take a while before Marsha is back to normal. I didn't know this before, but I've read it could take weeks?

I know I'm probably just a worried mother. Marsha is eating and pooping and playing, just at about half capacity. Also, how much she eats and poops varies alot. The vet also mentioned she could've developed a preference for the syringe food, and needs to be weaned off of it. Anyway, Marsha has always been a little spoiled, so what she liked to eat yesterday, she may not want the next day. Thoughts? Does any of this sound normal to anyone else? I've never had a rabbit before, so I have nothing to compare to.

Thanks!

 

[JBun]

It took my rabbit almost two weeks before he got back to normal after getting stasis, but his was caused by stress and not ingesting a foreign object. It can take a little while for the gut flora to get back into balance if the stasis disrupted it at all. With stasis it is sometimes helpful to adjust the diet to help get that GI flora in balance and get the gut contents moving better. Have you made any diet changes since this happened? What is she eating each day and what is her poop looking like now(normal, mushy, small, irregular)?

 

[MarshaMarshaMarsha]

So I don't want to jinx it, but she ate really well yesterday afternoon and today. Her normal diet is romaine lettuce and timothy hay with baby carrots, papaya tablets, and a tiny bit of banana. Saturday, the vet mentioned orchard grass hay because it's sweeter and a little less dry, and also mixing the critical care food into a paste and putting it onto the lettuce. At first I thought Marsha wasn't going to eat the paste, (I just put it on 2 pieces of her lettuce, in case she didn't like it) but when I came back the next morning it was all gone. Her poop is fine. Some of it is a little smaller than normal, which the vet said can happen if they don't eat enough hay, but mostly there just weren't as many pellets as normal.

Yesterday she ate two bowls of romaine and two boxes of hay, so I guess we're on the right track!

Thanks for responding! I was checking the forums about every 5 minutes yesterday, lol.