LoveCrumb
Well-Known Member
Hi everyone,
My first beloved rabbit, Jerry, who really helped me while I was grieving and coping with PTSD, was sick with GI stasis about twice a year. I was warned that he was sickly when I adopted him, and he ended up succumbing to it after four years. It was devastating for me and it's left me paranoid with my new rabbit.
I recently adopted a new, older bunny(around 5-7 years old), named Teddy, who is healthy, extremely confident and very demanding. I am happy to have such a different character in the house, but he is so good at getting himself into trouble despite my careful rabbit proofing and plenty of enriching toys/chew toys and boxes scattered everywhere. If my first rabbit ate the things Teddy ate, he would've gotten sick. I don't know what is not harmful/worrisome for a normal, healthy rabbit and I need your reassurances.
On the very first day, he ate a palm-sized amount of a cotton absorbent sheet I had placed in his carrier. He seemed perfectly fine. A week later, he ate a good portion of a rubber cup (those things you place under chair/sofa legs) and was fine (I have since thrown all the rubber cups out). My brother dropped a brownie he was eating, accidentally left a large crumb on the ground, and my rabbit got that, and he was fine. Last week, he found his pellet bag and he ate a strip of plastic right off the bag to get to the pellets, and once again he seemed fine as I anxiously hovered over him for the next day. Today, a threadbare sleeping shirt fell off my dresser and he ate a palm-sized hole into it (100% cotton, dyed bright pink), and once again I'm freaking out, waiting to see how he is over the next 24 hours. So you see, because of my previous experiences, I don't know whether I should be worried or not! I understand chewing and exploring with the mouth is normal, and I feel certain that he has plenty of different alternatives, but it would be naive of me to think he won't get into more things in the future.
Will he be okay?
What do your rabbits do? Have they been fine after consuming some things they shouldn't have? It would really calm my nerves to hear your experiences. I am still shocked that the plastic and rubber did not affect him- do you think he was able to digest it? I get scared thinking they might be stuck in his digestive tract, causing problems in the future.
PS. I'm pretty certain that he was never disciplined at his previous household and was likely not given any real rabbit toys to play with, as he is extremely attracted to the things that are NOT toys, and is generally uninterested in homemade or online-purchased natural rabbit toys and puzzles that most rabbits love. His favourite toy is anything cardboard for chewing, but I try really hard to get him to interact with the wide variety of safe natural toys and chews I have for him.
My first beloved rabbit, Jerry, who really helped me while I was grieving and coping with PTSD, was sick with GI stasis about twice a year. I was warned that he was sickly when I adopted him, and he ended up succumbing to it after four years. It was devastating for me and it's left me paranoid with my new rabbit.
I recently adopted a new, older bunny(around 5-7 years old), named Teddy, who is healthy, extremely confident and very demanding. I am happy to have such a different character in the house, but he is so good at getting himself into trouble despite my careful rabbit proofing and plenty of enriching toys/chew toys and boxes scattered everywhere. If my first rabbit ate the things Teddy ate, he would've gotten sick. I don't know what is not harmful/worrisome for a normal, healthy rabbit and I need your reassurances.
On the very first day, he ate a palm-sized amount of a cotton absorbent sheet I had placed in his carrier. He seemed perfectly fine. A week later, he ate a good portion of a rubber cup (those things you place under chair/sofa legs) and was fine (I have since thrown all the rubber cups out). My brother dropped a brownie he was eating, accidentally left a large crumb on the ground, and my rabbit got that, and he was fine. Last week, he found his pellet bag and he ate a strip of plastic right off the bag to get to the pellets, and once again he seemed fine as I anxiously hovered over him for the next day. Today, a threadbare sleeping shirt fell off my dresser and he ate a palm-sized hole into it (100% cotton, dyed bright pink), and once again I'm freaking out, waiting to see how he is over the next 24 hours. So you see, because of my previous experiences, I don't know whether I should be worried or not! I understand chewing and exploring with the mouth is normal, and I feel certain that he has plenty of different alternatives, but it would be naive of me to think he won't get into more things in the future.
Will he be okay?
What do your rabbits do? Have they been fine after consuming some things they shouldn't have? It would really calm my nerves to hear your experiences. I am still shocked that the plastic and rubber did not affect him- do you think he was able to digest it? I get scared thinking they might be stuck in his digestive tract, causing problems in the future.
PS. I'm pretty certain that he was never disciplined at his previous household and was likely not given any real rabbit toys to play with, as he is extremely attracted to the things that are NOT toys, and is generally uninterested in homemade or online-purchased natural rabbit toys and puzzles that most rabbits love. His favourite toy is anything cardboard for chewing, but I try really hard to get him to interact with the wide variety of safe natural toys and chews I have for him.
