How to help with recovery

[Pipp]

Hay is always the best basic diet. I've tried to get Pipp eating hay, but she'd rather starve. She seriously would starve.

Her favourite is pellets but they're restricted to a tiny handful, she gains weight quickly otherwise. But she gets a ton of veggies to get enough fibre and hydration. (She doesn't drink, either).

Also, if I give her a diet of pellets, she won't eat veggies. She's terrible for 'SBS' -- 'Spoiled Bunny Syndrome'.

So in your case, I think part of the idea behind restricting the veggies is to try and get her to eat more hay.

She also could have developed a sensitivity to one of the veggies.

I had one bunny who could not eat cilantro -- it gave him gas every time. Yet I've never had a problem with broccoli, cabbage or the like -- except again with Pipp when I gave her a salad with way too much of those type of gassy ones.

Personally, I'd give Cleo some carrot tops and see how she does with them. I've never had a rabbit react badly to veggies. Some have initially, but they've gotten past it.

I've had foster bunnies here with megacolon syndrome, I've put them on huge salads with a lot of variety -- at least six different types of veggies -- hardly any pellets and a lot of hay, and they never had a problem.

I find that what rabbits are weaned on seems to make quite a difference as to what they tolerate and enjoy the most.

Pipp, btw, almost died from cecal dysbiosis -- major runny cecals -- and the cause was an overdose of oats. I stay away from carbs and try and limit the fruit and high cal veggies, but the current lot do get plenty of each and they're managing to keep their weight down, they're all active bunnies with a lot of space.

So yeah, it's pretty confusing. We've all had different experiences. Angieluv has had as many rabbits or more as I've had, and her experiences have been different.

There really isn't a right or a wrong. There's just a best guess for your situation. You'll have to see how she does with experimentation.


sas :bunnydance:

 

[Maureen Las]

she has GI distress at the moment and shouldn't be filling upon pellets; she has been exhibitingsigns, signals that something is not right. even her avid chewing of cardboard linoleum and other objects is a sign of a rabbit in stasis and a need for fiber (whether they are eating it or not) .

Your rabbit could benefit by probiotics like benebac which are sold at pet stores

In stasis rabbits give off subtle clues which often are difficult to pick up initially. Fiber for a rabbit ishay and not veggies. I am not saying to not give her any but I feel that her diet is skewed towards a veggies diet when she should have been supplied and encouraged all along in trying differetn kinds of hay..being it brome, oat, timothy grass etc.

You had a problem and posted it soI responded in my opinion which is very similar to ra7751 (who owns a rabbit rescue and is a wildlife rehabber)

If she is fine now then I assume you will go back to your routine diet, however, hay is necessary for the grinding action needed to wear down molars.
Rabbits or lagomorphs are closer to hooves animals such as horses rather than rodent. Rabbits like horses cannot vomit and because of this anything that they ingest must be correct or consequences such as stasis , bloat ensue .

The drugs cisapride and metoclopromide are controversial on this forum ; they oftenseem to help a rabbit but if an gut x-ray was not done and there is a blockage then this can be disastrous.
Whywas gut stimulant given to a rabbit with pudding poops or none....?
I know this is hard to figure out as it is difficult to know who to listen to

Good luck!!

http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/ileus.html

This is an article that is good except we would totally dsisagree with the enema and also the use of motility drugs particularly if an abdominal x-ray was not taken.

 

[Cyber-Wizard]

Well it sounds as if many of my assumptions may do me well. She has always had veggies and has been equally happy to eat hay as well as pellets but she has made it clearto me that they are supposedto be eaten between meals of veggies. As everyone understands, I'm sure, my concerns at the moment are with getting her eating regularly again. She is lightly grazing on hay and pellets but not sufficiently to meet the requirements suggested by my vet for the next couple of days. I've decided not to give her the medication and try to get more water into her instead.It seems that the best way to get her back on track is to have her eat what she will eat. I think a varied diet makes sense for her as long as she's eating plenty of hay with it, which she always has. The kicker in this case seems to be the runny cecals which may well be resolved by getting her away from the pellets that I've been giving her in error.

In a few days she may forgive me for trying so hard to capture her and forcefeed her drugs and Critical Care. Once I reach that point I can put more effort towards getting her to allow me more physical contact again and see how she accepts massage. Right now she's happy to allow a few moments of petting before she shies away. Strangely she has no aversions to petting me for longer durations. I may lose skin from my forehead from all the licking. Clearly she's still not back to sorts but she's better than she was at the beginning of all this thanks in no small part to the advice I've gotten here.

 

[Maureen Las]

sounds good

hydration is more crucial than the critical care; you may want to get some infant electrolyte drink to syringe feed her ..or maybe she will like it enough to drink it out of a bowl

 

[tonyshuman]

If she'll eat veggies, they're good for a stasis situation because of the water content. The ones that are the most gentle and have lots of water are parsley, romaine, red leaf lettuce, cilantro (for some bunnies, some are sensitive to cilantro), and dandelion greens. You can even soak the greens for an hour in the sink to have them absorb more water. I don't think it makes sense to force feed if they'll feed on their own.

 

[Flashy]

I wonder if its worth going back to basics and reintroducing the fresh to her diet as you might a bunny who ins't used to it (not necessarily as strictly, but maybe one by one) because if the veggies are a problem then you will hopefully be able to identify which one/s is/are the problem.

I also think the chewing is indicative of something. It may be hunger, it may be discomfort, it may be somehow related to something else (I have a feeling somewhere I read that rabbits with renal failure can start to chew more-particularly wood?, but I have no literature or back up on that other than a vague memory, so someone might be able to clarify or disregard that).

I do think that, like with owning a child, there are so manhy different ways to do things. You've got a variety of suggestions here and it then comes down to reading them all, taking them on board and then making an educated decision on what you think is best for your rabbit. H?aving read this thread I can say that I trust Pipp, anglieluv and Randy implicitly and would take on board anything any of them said. However, when they give differing advice, it then comes down to what you think is best, hvaing read and gotten all the info from it.

 

[Cyber-Wizard]

Flashy wrote:

I wonder if its worth going back to basics and reintroducing the fresh to her diet

I also think the chewing is indicative of something.

Having read this thread I can say that I trust Pipp, anglieluv and Randy implicitly and would take on board anything any of them said.

I started giving her carrot tops last night and she gobbled them up instantly. This morning I soaked a few more in water for an hour and put them in her dish in her cage. She's run in a couple of times to eat one and then run out again. She seems to be thinking of this illness as some sort of vacation because she's out all day. There were numerous very tiny pellets in her litter this morning along with one extremely large one(that couldn't have been comfortable). It didn't look like she ate much hay over night. She's still not eating hay or drinking by herself but she's more than happy to eat any hay that we offer to her by hand and is letting me give her water by a syringe every half hour or so4 or 5 mL at a time.

The chewing isn't a destructive sort of thing. It's really more like a taste. She's always done it even when well. Whenever she's around wood (and she thinks no one is looking) you hear a single crunch occasionally as she takes one nibble as if to see if it's actually wood and then that's it. The wife has a small bench that she keeps plants up off the floor on. It's made of old barnboard and Cleo thinks it's pretty cool. As that's the only thing that she's been tasting I'm not overly concerned. I think of it more as a good sign that's she's curious again.

Funny you should mention trust. This is the only forum that I've ever been on (and I'd be online intravenously if I could) where everyone seems pleasant, friendly, eager to help, and truly knowledgeable. I haven't heard anyone recommend anything that wasn't helpful and logical and I find myself trusting everyone. While I'm nowhere near smart enough to be a helpful as anyone who's responded to me I certainly will hang around to absorb the enormous amount of knowledge that you all have.

 

[Maureen Las]

How is she doing now?

Maureen:expressionless

 

[Cyber-Wizard]

She popped back into her cage to relax a few hours ago. Once she was in there she started eating pellets and drinking water on her own. I haven't witnessed her eating any hay so we've been handfeeding her some whenever she will take it. I had brought her water dish out into the living room in the morning and I realize now that many of the trips she made back into the cage were to look for her water dish. I've left her dish in the cage and got another one for out in the room. She's visited the litterbox twice while she's been in there and everything looks normal. She's been snoozing on and off as she generally does this time of day. I'm torn between letting her out for some more exercise now or leaving her to rest. The chairs in this room are more for form than function and I've been sitting here reading/surfing beside her cage for the better part of 12 hours so I could probably use a rest as much as she. In all she seems OK now although I would like to see a little more eating going on. I hate the thoughts of having to go to work tomorrow and leave her on her own for the day. Although I suppose the return to routine might do her good.

 

[Maureen Las]

She really sounds like she is on the road to recovery but still has a little ways to go/

 

[tonyshuman]

:yeahthat:

 

[Pipp]

How's your bunny? Is she eating more now? Pooping lots?


sas :bunnydance:

 

[Cyber-Wizard]

Yes. She's very happy now, thanks! She's getting a lot less greens than she was before and that's making her eat a lot more pellets and hay. What greens she does get, I'm soaking in water for an hour to increase her water intake. Now that she's feeling better she's gone back to drinking less water. She was always excited when a new litterbox arrived in her cage with a fresh batch of hay but now it's even more so. She has a two storey bunny condo and I lower in the new litterbox from the top. The other night she intercepted the box from the top floor and made me stand there holding it for 10 minutes while she picked out piece after piece of hay. She gets almost as excited about fresh hay now as she does for a treat of a piece of banana. I still feel that pooping is down somewhat from before but I think she's also eating a little less. She seems to have much more energy than she did before and is even a little bit more lovable. Head rubs are now mandatory for anyone requiring access to her cage. She is tolerating my wife much better than she has in the past (until I get home, then suddenly she ignores my wife. :biggrin2. She started running around the house on Monday night and the wife said that we got our first binky's in a week last night just before I got home.

 

[Maureen Las]

I used to fed a lot of everything including greens, hay and pellets; the buns ate mainlythe pellets and greens. they had no problems with their GI tracts but they did gain weight (probably the pellets).

Recently I cut the pellets way down (bu I did it veryslowly). cut back on the greens (they cost a lot) and went heavy on they hay. mine too are now behaving as if thehay is wonderful and eating a lot of it. Their GI tracts are in great shape

Ifeed no treats at all ; my rabbits now think their pellets are treats.

Anything with too much sugar,,even natural fruit is too high in sugar for a rabbit . it can be given in tiny amounts but they should not be given much of it.
Ido spike the bowls of 2 of my rabbits with apple juice ;. I top it off like cream in coffee.I have 2 buns that drink very little and became concerned because of the many cases of blader sludge we had on the forum a few months back.

The juice in the water has not affected their GI tracts , however, they drink 100% more fluids than they did 6 months ago soI feel that this is working.


I am really glad your little girl is bouncing back