New to this whole thing and her poop is so soft.

[Sophie.k2002]

Hello, i got my bun bun 5 days ago. She's 1 month and 16 days old.
I fed her basil, spinach, carrot and bread bits. She doesn't drink water ,i have to forcefully feed her with syringe before she dies of dehydration.
We don't have hay available , and my parents that i need to get her things for me, don't accompany me with this.
I'm new to this pet life style and rabbits aren't like other animals.
I don't know what to get for her as a cage.
I don't know what to get for her litter box and how to teach her to poop and pee in the litter box (my parents bug me all the time for this).
I don't know what to do to bunny proof the house and stop her from chewing stuff.
And to make her comfortable with me.I'm so scared and worried. I can't sleep at night, her kicking and jumping is really stressing me out.
And now her poop is so soft and sticky, i don't know what to do. I'm so scared she might die. I read everywhere that she needs hay. And there's no hay around us that could help her. Please help me as soon as possible

-Sophie

 

[Preitler]

Hi,

can you find out what she was fed before you got her? If yes, continue with that. Cut out bread completly and limit carrots to a half finger sized bit per day, too rich, that can cause poop problems.

When being fed greens and vegetables rabbits drink almost nothing, just offer her a crock with water (or bottle if she is used to that, but most rabbits drink more from a crock)

I wouldn't let her free roam now, but keep her in a rather small area until she's more grown up, she'll learn that that is her base. Use a cat litter box, or any big enough flat plastic container as litter box and put it in a corner of her enclosure. You can fill it with shredded paper, wood pellets (if available), straw, whatever. Avoid dusty cat litter. She quite likely will litter train herself when she gets older (she is still a baby and will poop everywhere for some time), since that is actually a natural instinct.

What's the vegetation like where you live? Is there grass and weeds to gather? Since you are already feeding green stuff any grass (also stuff like reeds or bamboo) would be better as staple food.

Your rabbit is awfully young, any food changes in that age can be a real problem. The best thing would be to find out what she and her mom were fed, and continue to feed that for another 2 months, and then slowly introduce new stuff.

 

[Sophie.k2002]

Thank you so much.
(her name is Alice)
I don't know what she was fed before i got her, in my country, bunnies are being sold so casually in the streets, we never know where they come from or their breed.

We don't have a bottle , i have a bowl in her cage but she doesn't drink from that so i have to feed her.

Her cage is so small for now. I'm planning to buy her a new one that is more comfortable. Maybe a hutch, a bigger cage or playpen. I don't know which one is the best for our place.

What should i do with her before i go to sleep? I get stressed all night and can't sleep.

The vet is very expensive here , we might not be able to get to a vet.

What do you suggest for me to put in her cage? (besides hay)
Her poops keep sticking all over the cage and i have to wash it two or three times a day.

Is hay the best option for everything poop, cage and food?

 

[Sophie.k2002]

Oh by the way, can i keep feeding her basil?

 

[zuppa]

Hello, i got my bun bun 5 days ago. She's 1 month and 16 days old.
I fed her basil, spinach, carrot and bread bits. She doesn't drink water ,i have to forcefully feed her with syringe before she dies of dehydration.
We don't have hay available , and my parents that i need to get her things for me, don't accompany me with this.
I'm new to this pet life style and rabbits aren't like other animals.
I don't know what to get for her as a cage.
I don't know what to get for her litter box and how to teach her to poop and pee in the litter box (my parents bug me all the time for this).
I don't know what to do to bunny proof the house and stop her from chewing stuff.
And to make her comfortable with me.I'm so scared and worried. I can't sleep at night, her kicking and jumping is really stressing me out.
And now her poop is so soft and sticky, i don't know what to do. I'm so scared she might die. I read everywhere that she needs hay. And there's no hay around us that could help her. Please help me as soon as possible

-Sophie

Hi, can you post some photo of the area she lives now and of her and where she poops etc?
Her poop is so soft and sticky because she only eats fresh vegetables, they are not recommended for very young rabbits (younger than 6 months) but my rabbits are 4 months old and they are getting fresh leaves and i piece of carrot but not much, and they are fine, just you need to introduce them to fresh greens gradually otherwise they will have diarrhea or other health problems.

Now, that is pretty bad that you don't have hay because hay must be 80% of their diet. If you don't have hay in your pet stores maybe you have horses, donkeys or camels around and can ask where are getting food, maybe their owners can sell you a little bit of hay, because all those animals normally are getting hay too. Maybe it is sold somewhere else, not in pet stores. Or try to buy online if there's an option they ship to your country. Hay is important.

Don't give her bread, it is bad for her.

Vegetables lettuce is good (except of Iceberg), celery, carrot maybe a little piece not every day because it is high on sugar, basil is good but it's all good as an addition to hay, so try to find hay as soon as possible. You can google hay or rabbit food in your area maybe Google will give you some links.

Also you can get dry food for rabbits search for rabbit pellets/nuggets or rabbit food on ebay, amazon or your local sites.

For litter box you can use any plastic tray large enough so she can jump in, fill it with shredded paper if you don't have wood shavings or specialized litter filler (cat litter is not good if not wood pellets)

If you can't find to buy cage you can make one possibly? She needs her own place with her litter box and food and water, like 100 x 500 cm size, if you can find some unused furniture and make front panel with wire or something so she had enough light and air, just for now. Here are some suggestions for homemade rabbit housing, just bear in mind that she will pee and poop everywhere at the beginning so it is good idea to put a piece of linoleum or something easy for cleaning, it is hard to remove odors from wood.

 

[zuppa]

Oh by the way, can i keep feeding her basil?

Basil is fine but not as her main food, you can give a handful of basil once a day. She will have upset stomach if you only feed her greens, you need to find hay as soon as possible. And don't give her bread at all.

 

[Preitler]

Hay is not necessary if the rabbit was raised on green stuff, like grass and weeds. It is a safe fallback whenever there are digestive problems, but grass with a lot of fiber is imho the next best thing if hay, or hay based pellets are not available.

As I said, when you do not feed dried stuff like hay, pellets and so, rabbits drink almost nothing. I wouldn't force it on her, at least not much, a little won't hurt, I guess, but normally they drink when they get thirsty, but with greens they get all or most water they need from the food.

 

[Sophie.k2002]

Hi, can you post some photo of the area she lives now and of her and where she poops etc?
Her poop is so soft and sticky because she only eats fresh vegetables, they are not recommended for very young rabbits (younger than 6 months) but my rabbits are 4 months old and they are getting fresh leaves and i piece of carrot but not much, and they are fine, just you need to introduce them to fresh greens gradually otherwise they will have diarrhea or other health problems.

Now, that is pretty bad that you don't have hay because hay must be 80% of their diet. If you don't have hay in your pet stores maybe you have horses, donkeys or camels around and can ask where are getting food, maybe their owners can sell you a little bit of hay, because all those animals normally are getting hay too. Maybe it is sold somewhere else, not in pet stores. Or try to buy online if there's an option they ship to your country. Hay is important.

Don't give her bread, it is bad for her.

Vegetables lettuce is good (except of Iceberg), celery, carrot maybe a little piece not every day because it is high on sugar, basil is good but it's all good as an addition to hay, so try to find hay as soon as possible. You can google hay or rabbit food in your area maybe Google will give you some links.

Also you can get dry food for rabbits search for rabbit pellets/nuggets or rabbit food on ebay, amazon or your local sites.

For litter box you can use any plastic tray large enough so she can jump in, fill it with shredded paper if you don't have wood shavings or specialized litter filler (cat litter is not good if not wood pellets)

If you can't find to buy cage you can make one possibly? She needs her own place with her litter box and food and water, like 100 x 500 cm size, if you can find some unused furniture and make front panel with wire or something so she had enough light and air, just for now. Here are some suggestions for homemade rabbit housing, just bear in mind that she will pee and poop everywhere at the beginning so it is good idea to put a piece of linoleum or something easy for cleaning, it is hard to remove odors from wood.

This is her little cage for now.
I'll try my best to get to find hay anywhere.
She keeps jumping out of her little cage easily. Opens it and comes out so i have to cover it with something. What kind of cage would you highly suggest, what's best?
She keeps jumping, kicking around in her cage at night, i can't sleep.
We're at vacation so this is not our house, i can't get anything i need here. Amazon and ebay don't work in here. I live in iran.
So thank you for your help and I'm sorry if I'm asking too much

 

[Opal]

I would suggest a large dog kennel preferably one without a wire floor. You would just have to let her out to play when she's most active. She might be jumping around because she feels cramped. Is she getting enough exercise? She should have at least 4 hours of exercise every day, as she's young and that will tire her out quickly. Best of luck! [emoji177][emoji195]

 

[zuppa]

She's very cute and nice box too, she won't sit inside for long of course it is too small but I understand it is just temporary. If you live in Iran you probably don't have much grass around as well.
Plastic cages are easy to clean at the beginning when she is not fully toilet trained.

When I got my first rabbit I had no cage too so made one of plastic box 40x70cm and 8 grid panels from storage unit, I fixed them with tape but some people use plastic ties. This cage was a bit too small but did the job before I found another cage.

This is not my cage I just wanted to show you grid panels I used

Here's some standard plastic cages I would recommend size min 100x50 cm and just make sure the door is big enough and opens comfortably so your rabbit can comfortably go out and in. Rabbits like to dig and spread their bedding around so it is good if the cage has high borders.

Some people prefer DIY cages if you can get some baby safety panels or fireguards like me you can make one easily.

 

[Augustus&HazelGrace]

You said you didn't know the breed. She looks like a Dutch rabbit to me and they get up to 5.5 pounds.

 

[Sophie.k2002]

I would suggest a large dog kennel preferably one without a wire floor. You would just have to let her out to play when she's most active. She might be jumping around because she feels cramped. Is she getting enough exercise? She should have at least 4 hours of exercise every day, as she's young and that will tire her out quickly. Best of luck! [emoji177][emoji195]

Thank you!

 

[Sophie.k2002]

You said you didn't know the breed. She looks like a Dutch rabbit to me and they get up to 5.5 pounds.

Aw thank you so much. This is so cute

 

[Sophie.k2002]

It's about 6 am in the morning. I got up to feed her some water. It's a mess in the box. Poop all over the place. On my hands. On the towels. I'm really worried now.
Any ideas?

 

[Sophie.k2002]

Great, now i can't even sleep. I took her outside for a play. She walked around for 2 minutes, and then it was so cold we came back inside . And she's cleaning herself in front of the fireplace. She's doing good, her poops and cage aren't. I'm feeding her carrots for a bit . We bought a kind of pellete with so much additional things with it. She doesn't eat those.
I don't really know what I'm doing. Sitting in the dark while feeding her carrots.

 

[zuppa]

It looks like she has diarrhea - no surprise as she is not getting right food. I am no expert only solution I see is to get hay for her, I understand it is probably difficult where you live but I don't know how to help you here.
I don't think carrots would help to be honest, can you tell what is written on pellets package? I know there's some pellets with hay for rabbits that refuse hay. Is it rabbit food at all?
If she was on fresh vegetables and grass before you got her - not sure about it too, as she's only 6 weeks now so she was with her mother until then I don't think she was just on greens. Babies usually stay with their mother until 6-8 weeks of age, in some countries it is illegal selling rabbits younger than 8 weeks. I honestly don't know how to help you hopefully here are some people who know more about diarrhea and can advise, sorry.

>>Hello, i got my bun bun 5 days ago. She's 1 month and 16 days old.
I fed her basil, spinach, carrot and bread bits. She doesn't drink water ,i have to forcefully feed her with syringe before she dies of dehydration.

 

[JBun]

If you can, try and find out what rabbits are normally fed in your country by people. What we are able to feed our rabbits might be different from what is available to you in your country. Rabbits main diet consists of fresh grass or dried good quality grass/hay(if available to you). It's going to be hard for us to know what to suggest as we don't know what types of foods are available to you.

 

[zuppa]

I see facebook is restricted in Iran maybe you have some other social network where you can ask LOCAL rabbit owners what food they buy and where they buy it?
Look, here's an Instagram account I can't read but looks like rabbit store or something, maybe you can ask them about local food for rabbits?
https://www.instagram.com/rabbits__land/

 

[Sophie.k2002]

I don't know what else to do. I feed her water and the only thing we have and she likes, carrots.
Her cage is a still a mess. She doesn't eat the hay pelletes i have put there.
I don't know how to convince her to eat it. There's oats and corn too.

 

[Preitler]

Hi,

rolled oats (kitchen oat meal) are ok, it's what I offer to baby rabbits, not too much though, I would say a tea spoon per day. Corn is not so good.

Rabbits can be careful when encountering something new, they take a sniff or bite, and that was it for a day. In nature that protects them from eating too much of anything toxic, and it protects their delicate digestion from rapid changes.
That doesn't always work, pretty much only when it annoys us , giving a rabbit not used to greens a pile of grass or put it an the lawn for hours might cause problems.

So, to get her started on the pellets I would crush some, mix it with water to form a paste, and put a little on her lips, or front feet so she has to clean it, that might get her used to the smell and taste and make her realise that's something edible.

Also, you can try to sit next to her and make munching motions with your hand in the pellet bowl while ignoring her, not even looking at her, rabbits are greedy little things, something that is of interest to others often makes them curious. You'll need a lot of patience with rabbits.

Reduce the carrots, they are sweet, sugary treats, as long as she is full of that she wont eat something new.