Losing weight? Situational or something more serious?

[banginpatchouli]

Hey all! Im a proud bunny mom to a 5 year old English Spot named Professor Plum.
He's the best bun a gal could have, and I'm starting to worry a bit. I live in Cincinnati Ohio now.
I just moved to my first house and took Plum with me. He's been just fine since October. He's mostly an outdoor rabbit, he has a big hutch I built that is well insulated and comfortable. However, I take him in and put him in my bathroom with a litter box and things he needs when it gets below freezing.

(He would be inside during the winter most of the time if I still lived with my parents- he had complete run of the workshop for the past 4 years. However, with my new living arrangements and with my roommates husky... that can't be the case anymore. The dog wants to "play" and Plum, while very sociable and fine with cats and most dogs, is unnerved by this dogs rambunctiousness... So he has lived outside mostly for the past few months. He doesn't seem to mind, as he is well insulated and his hutch is beneath our deck, well sheltered from wind.)

I've noticed in the past week that Plum seems to be losing weight. He feels bony to me, unlike the plump bun that I know and love to snuggle. I recently got a giant bucket of rabbit food from a client of mine (I cut hair) and while he seems to enjoy it, I'm not sure if the food has a good nutritional value to it. I think its old.
Plum eats mostly pellets and hay, and the occasional treat. ( he loves broccoli stems...) His appetite seems okay, he is pooping regularly (which is a TON) and his attitude is just the same. The only other thing I can see is that he is drinking alot of water. But that could be from the change in food or environmental changes in keeping up with the weather.

TL;DR:
Normal healthy rabbit is losing a little weight- is it stress, situational, food, or winter changes?
Could I be imagining things? Or should I be taking him to the vet to check for renal or kidney failure?
Im so worried. He's my best little buddy.

 

[JBun]

Poor quality food could maybe play a part. Is he getting more food now that it's cold? Outdoor rabbits need the extra food in cold weather, to keep warm and maintain their weight.

The increased drinking along with the weight loss, is somewhat concerning though, as that can be an indication of a more serious health problem. If he always has access to food, but is still losing weight, it would be best to have him checked by your vet right away.

http://www.rabbitnetwork.org/articles/weightloss.shtml

 

[banginpatchouli]

Yes, he is getting more food now that he is outside. However, tomorrow I'm going to go buy his regular food that he is used to to see if that will make a difference.
The drinking is interesting though. He may just be drinking the normal amount that he usually does. It's usually from a bottle but inside he has a water dish. Maybe Im noticing it more.
Thanks for your reply! He has had minor health problems before (botflies...eeeeugh) and he acted weird even before I noticed them. This may just be a nutrition thing. I'm hoping it is, anyway. I can fix that readily.

 

[Imbrium]

Many people find that their bunnies drink a lot more from a bowl than they do from a water bottle (mine definitely do), so it's hard to say if he's drinking a lot because he likes the bowl or because of an underlying health problem.

Do you have a small scale? If not, you might look into buying one. "Pet" and "postal" scales (pet scales meant for smaller animals, not huge dogs, I mean) are obscenely priced, but if you look for a "kitchen" scale, the price for a decent one plummets down to the $10-20 range (depending on whether you want digital or are happy with an old-school one).

When I was scale shopping, I needed something that could weigh in 1g increments for weighing sugar gliders but could handle weighing bunnies as well - I ended up buying this one off of Amazon. I've had it for over a year, use it frequently (for business/postal reasons, mostly), have *never* changed the battery (though it runs off an easy-to-find 9V anyway) and I've knocked that thing onto the floor from counter top level more times than I'd care to admit (including once tonight)... it's still going strong. Because the weighing surface isn't really big enough for a bunny and bunnies don't really like to sit still on the scale, I put a box on the scale, tare it and then add the bunny.

I recommend weighing him every 2-3 days (preferably around the same time of day for each weighing) and keeping track of the weights as you experiment with diet, pellets, etc. If you can get his weight to stop dropping by changing something or other, then chances are you've fixed the problem - as long as his weight starts to go back up reasonably soon after it stops declining, I suspect you're in the clear.

If you make some changes and he continues to lose weight, a vet visit is definitely needed... and being able to show the vet some records of his weight loss may help them pinpoint the cause. I wouldn't go more than a week with his weight continuing to drop after getting him back on his usual pellet before getting him in to see the vet, though.

A scale is always a good idea anyway, as small animals hide sickness well and sudden weight loss or gain can be the first sign that something is wrong - I try to do weekly (or at least bi-monthly) weigh-ins for all my pets and record their weights in a notebook so I can easily spot any significant changes .

 

[kwelborne]

It could be a common hairball since rabbits clean themselves it happens even if u brush them

 

[kwelborne]

Give him pineapple juice it's good for internal issues and doesn't hurt them

 

[Imbrium]

The big signs that there's a hairball (or enough of one to cause problems, anyway) are reduced (or lack of) appetite and/or pooping - a hairball wouldn't explain weight loss in a bunny that's eating and pooping normally.

Pineapple juice does contain some digestive enzymes, but only if it's fresh (the canning process denatures them) and it's pretty high in sugar. For most bunnies, very limited amounts would be fine, but bunnies very sensitive to sugar might have problems (potentially as serious as developing GI stasis). A lot of vets, rabbit owners and even biologists with a focus on rabbits have come to the conclusion that pineapple juice is an outdated and ineffective remedy.

I'm not completely convinced that the enzymes can't be helpful, but I think a bunny would have to drink a very unhealthy amount of juice to ingest enough enzymes to actually do anything (in other words, the risks of the juice outweigh the potential benefits of the enzymes). My recommendation to anyone who thinks the enzymes are worth a shot is to give them in supplement form, ie Oxbow papaya tablets. There are also chewable papaya tablets marketed towards humans which are similar, but I don't recommend them since they're more sugary - the first two inactive ingredients in the human stuff are dextrose (aka sugar) and sugar; the first two in the Oxbow tablets are cellulose (aka fiber, what bunnies thrive off of) and maltodextrine (which sounds like a sugar but is actually a starch). The supplement form is concentrated and stuffed with extra enzymes, so the enzyme to sugar ratio is infinitely better than it is for fresh pineapple juice.

Sorry if it seems like I'm coming down kind of hard on you by criticizing your posts - I promise that's not my intention; I'm simply trying to correct some (extremely common) misconceptions . The pineapple juice thing is "conventional wisdom" that's been passed around for ages (probably 20+ years) and people have only started to refute it very recently.

Welcome to RO, by the way! Hope you stick around - this forum is tons of fun and full of information . We'd love it if you posted an introduction and showed off some pics of your bunn(s), by the way .

 

[lovelops]

It could be the change in the living situation, being used to being indoor. Maybe there are cats outside at night, or other animals and that could be worrying him..who knows. Is there any way you could keep him in the bedroom with you while he's recouping to keep an eye on him and his weight and eating habits?

Quick question.. Is there no way you could let him sleep and stay in your room at all? Maybe it's the transition also that is causing him to eat less and maybe once inside he would get back to normal?? I know my buns HATE to have their routine broken and will have fits...Just an idea.... and BTW, I understand about the husky!!

I had a husky in the past and love them but boy the shedding they do!!!!

I have 4 dogs now and 4 bunnies and all are indoors. Chihuahua's and one chihuahua mix that has caught a cotton tail before in the backyard, but did not hurt him.

I have the dogs blocked off in one room with a crate (one of my dogs is a senior and only gets up for food and treats... so he doesn't care about the rabbits) and my buns are in the second bed room. While my buns play in the hallway the dogs are adjacent in the living room and even now I have Brooke who looks like Plum a little on the porch in a play pen with the door open for heat, the dogs in the living room, my Agouti's Chico and Chica in the hallway and bathroom to get their run time in and miss wonderful Lady the Lop in the kitchen all spread out after tossing half her litter box on the floor... I move Lady when the dogs need to go to the bathroom and then put her cage back on the floor (from the chest freezer) and they come back in and sleep but then again Husky's have different energy levels than Chihuahuas.. Chi's are almost narcoleptic. They will sleep most of the day and night if nothing is going on ...

I hope you can find out what is going on with Plum and I hope it's nothing serious..