I got a 2 year old rabbit not even a week ago, and now she’s showing the beginning signs of what I believe to be GI stasis. It is EXTREMELY difficult trying to help her when I got her so recently, and she does not respond to being handled at all (I heard about the famous stomach massage, but when I attempted to handle her at all even to check her stomach it was a stressful ordeal for her and I don’t want to put her under any more stress than she needs to be under)
Basically what’s been happening is this: Two days ago my rabbit suddenly became more withdrawn than usual, and ate and drank less than usual. She would eat pellets (I don’t have her on unlimited pellets) but would NOT touch her hay and was reluctant to eat veggies. I checked her litterbox and her poop was noticeably smaller in size, and there wasn’t as much as usual.
Eventually in the middle of the night she did start to eat hay again, and now today the opposite problem (yet still equally as worrisome) has been happening: She no longer wants to eat pellets, but does eat hay and veggies more readily. This alone isn’t something to worry about because pellets aren’t that necessary, but now her poop is increasing in size, but decreasing in amount. She seems to strain really hard trying to pass droppings as well.Other than the size and amount of her poop changing, the color and shape remains the same.
Later on last night I saw her drinking some water and she ate more hay which is good.
I found some poop strung together with fur in her litterbox, which leads me to believe that she’s ingested a lot of fur and might have a blockage. I’ve tried to figure out the cause of her new problems and I came to two possible reasons: Stress or ingesting too much fur? (Or both, but overall she doesn’t seem to have any teeth problems considering she had her teeth examined about a week ago it’s very unlikely)
Now, I’m wondering a few things:
-Will more veggies help her or hurt her? I’ve been thinking about increasing the amount of veggies she gets so she’s not dehydrated, but I’m also worried she will get gas/MORE stomach problems
-She is ending a shed, and I stupidly barely groomed her earlier because I was super nervous about her getting more stress than she needed. Should I attempt to groom her anyways? She is a very shy rabbit who is easily stressed
-Should I even bother giving her pellets at this point if she doesn’t want to eat them? Or should I leave them out so she’s tempted to eat as much food as possible?
Sorry for bugging you guys on this forum so much, but I’m really worried about this and I want to do the right things so the problem isn’t worse when she gets to the vet (Speaking of vets, I heard that vet visits can stress your rabbit out a LOT so should I try to call them more than visit them?)