New bunny might be sick

[Imbrium]

is he not eating the baby food willingly? if so, I'm surprised - mine lap at the syringe and practically rip it out of my hand at times.

I recommend doing the best you can for now and phoning the vet on monday if they're open to find out if you can get liquid baytril.

if he's not skittish, you could go ahead and love on him a little... if he is, you could see if he'd accept some pets while laying on the floor

 

[teric506]

he started to eat it willingly but we both seem clumsy about it. If i cant get better at it over the weekend i will call the vet monday morning and see if i can get a liquid version of it. i did hold him a little while he was burritoed after the medicine and nose cleaning and he seemed fine with it. He also sat on my sons bed with him while i cleaned out his cage. The vet told me not to put any bedding in it because the dust could possibly make him sneeze more. so for now i am cleaning his cage every half an hour because he is not litter trained, but i am working on that too so hopefully he will get the hang of it and stop sleeping in his litter box. Thanks again for all of the help, we soooo greatly appreciate it.

 

[Imbrium]

if he's eating it willingly, then it's just a matter of getting used to the rate at which to push down on the plunger

here's videos of my girls eating baby food (and me trying in vain to get them to recreate the cuteness of the time they spent about 5 minutes trying like hell to get the jar open themselves, lol):

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ9o1z4taRs[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_INVl7s-K4k[/ame]

 

[teric506]

They are sooo cute. You looked like you were going to the front of their mouths and I was going to the side. Maybe I'll try the front tomorrow and see if he does better that way. Thanks for the video, that helped a lot.

 

[Imbrium]

if you have to force-feed, you always go for the side, squirting it in sideways (so the bunny doesn't inhale anything) with the syringe in the gap between their front and back teeth... but if they're taking the food/liquid willingly, front is much easier.

I *tried* to feed baby food going from the side the first time I ever fed it because I was trying to practice syringe feeding while they were healthy in case I ever had to do it later (which I did, after their spays) - they were so eager to get at what was in the syringe, they wouldn't let me get it to the side of their mouths, lol. they'd turn their heads and practically attack the syringe. I also find it easier to NOT hold the bunny or have them burrito'd if they're taking it willingly - it's a whole different game than feeding them something they don't want!

I basically just hold the syringe up to their mouth and when they start licking at it, I start slowly pushing the plunger down. every once in a while, something drips, but 95%+ of it ends up in the bunny.

 

[tolstoibunny]

Baytril pills might taste really bad so it may be difficult to get the bunny eat them willingly. I've had best luck with the following method. I take a small piece of banana (most bunnies go crazy over banana), carve a small hole into the piece, put the crushed pill in the hole and put a small crumb of banana on top of it. If the pills are fairly large you can divide them into smaller portions and use more banana pieces. The idea is that the banana piece is small enough so that the bunny will eat it as a whole, that way they can't taste the pill so well.