Recovery from GI stasis?

[Zephyre]

Hi!

I have posted before about my bunny's GI stasis episode, but since then he has started eating and pooping so I made a separate question for this.

How long does it usually take before a bunny recovers? Is it normal for his appetite to have ups and downs? Is it normal for his poops to be a lot of different sizes and shapes?

My bun (who I recently discovered was male so he has no official name right now) went into stasis Wednesday/Thursday 10 days ago. He started treatment on Friday, but until Monday night there was little improvement. On Tuesday he made a few droppings, and on Wednesday he started eating a bit of hay. Since then his appetite gradually increased and so did the amount of poop he made. Yesterday he ate about 3/4 of his size in hay and also some critical care so it was almost back to normal. Yesterday he also recieved IV treatment, but we stopped it, and today he gets oral medication, and if everything goes well tomorrow he will not get any more meds except simethicone.

This morning he was very alert and ate a lot, but this afternoon he seems a bit sluggish and sad. He does not seem to be in pain, and reacts if we call him, but otherwise he stands still and appears to sleep or be somehow lost in thought. He appears to eat less than yesterday too. His poops also vary in size and shape (first poops he made were small, then they got biger than usual - about 2x the size of his usual droppings and now they are all sizes).

Is this normal? Should I be worried?

 

[Zephyre]

He is a video of how he looks - .

I also attached a picture of his poop.

 

[JBun]

In cases of severe stasis, it can take a couple weeks before things get all the way back to normal. I had a buck with a really bad case, and it took about 2 weeks before he was all the way better. It's hard to tell from the video if your rabbit is uncomfortable or not. My rabbit will sometimes get that look, and I think it's when some of their cecotropes are about to come out and they are waiting so they can consume them. I would say if it doesn't last more than 10 minutes then it's probably normal, but if it goes on longer than that then I would suspect some digestive upset causing the behavior.

One thing to consider with the poops still being abnormal and if your bun is still showing signs of discomfort, is that he may be getting something in his diet that is causing continued digestive upset. My buck that had the severe stasis, he would just get through it and would be eating hay and pellets again, then got sick all over again. It was a repeating pattern until I noticed that after he would eat his pellets, soon after he would start being less active, squint his eyes, and belly press. These are all signs of discomfort and pain, and I made the link that the pellets were causing him to continue to get an upset stomach and develop stasis. I decided to take him off pellets and just free feed hay and limited greens. After I did that he never had stasis again. Though he did continue to have some minor poop abnormalities due to what I believed was permanent nerve damage in the digestive tract from the repeated bouts with stasis, but as long as I didn't feed anything with sugar/carbs and just stuck with hay and greens, the poops were mostly normal. So, just something to keep in mind if you think your bun is continuing to have issues.

 

[Zephyre]

Thank you for the reply!

I looked over the medication he got at the vet and there was Buprenorfine there. I am not 100% he got any yesterday, but if he did I think that might be why he was so out of it?

Today he seems a bit more active, but still not as playful and jumping around as before and he still has moments when he seems a bit dazed/out of it like in the video. The tummy is soft though, and he eats like crazy. In fact, he seems famished. He eats almost all the time, and when he is not eating he shows zero interest in anything not food related. I weighed him today and was shocked to see he lost 200g (went from 1250g to 1080g, and he is still growing so he should have been around 1400g by now instead). Maybe that weight loss is also why he is so lethargic? I will start feeding him some extra Critical Care until he gets back to the weight he had initially, but I am a bit scared to give him any pellets, especially with what you said about them giving your bun stasis. I am currently feeding him unlimited hay, about 5 stalks of parsley every day and around 40 ml of critical care. Do you have any tips on how to encourage weight gain?

 

[JBun]

Buprenophrine can certainly cause them to be less active and act spaced out. I would maybe consider reducing the dose or even stopping it(ask your vet) if he is still getting it, or ask your vet to switch to meloxicam, which is a NSAID pain reliever. Buprenorphine can cause them to eat less because of lethargy from it(though it sounds like your rabbit doesn't have this issue), and it can actually cause the gut to slow down(like opiate meds do with people), which is opposite of what you want. If he is eating and pooping at this point, then he may not even need pain meds anymore, certainly not narcotic ones.

It's fine to keep feeding critical care. If he seems to be doing well on it then I would just keep offering that. If you start to run out and are getting it from the vet, you can order the big bag online for a bit cheaper. I get mine from amazon. As long as he is eating really well, he will start to gradually put the weight back on.

Once his behavior and poop is completely back to normal, that's when I would start considering trying to add pellets back in(with no other food changes at the same time), very slowly keeping watch for signs of upset. Then if you start seeing signs of discomfort or digestive upset, you know it's the pellets causing it.

 

[Zephyre]

Today was the first day med-free. I only gave him some simethicone, but other than that, nothing. He seems to have transitioned easily.

He begs for more food whenever he sees me, and eats up the critical care I give with a lot of enthusiasm (until 2-3 days ago every time he saw the syringe he would become grumpy and he fought me every time I tried to give it to him). Before the stasis he would eat hay and muesli style pellets and corn, which I obviously can't give anymore now that I've seen what they can do. I think he is not really used to eating only hay and I worry it might not be enough to him in this state. It is kinda funny kinda sad seeing him eat hay so desperately.

 

[JBun]

Muesli isn't good to be feeding rabbits anyways, particularly with whole corn kernals, which have been known to be a cause for GI blockages and stasis. So when you start up pellets again, get just a plain grass based pellet like oxbow adult pellets, etc.
https://www.vettimes.co.uk/news/muesli-like-foods-very-bad-for-rabbits-research-reveals/

If he is eating at least a pile of hay a bit bigger than the size of his body each day, then it should be fine. A few more days without pellets isn't going to make much difference.