I see so many posts on here about newbies come here and say "help! so and so won’t eat" and the first thing everyone shouts is "get him to the vet! he’s going to die!"….

Not to make light of my mistake, but when I first got my bunny (Thursday night), I brought her home, set up her cage with pellet food, carefresh bedding and a new expensive water bottle (a flat back with a floating duck inside). When I left for work the next morning I noticed she hadn’t eaten any of the pellets I had given her but figured she needed time to settle in. I told my boyfriend to keep a close eye on her, as I had to go to work for a 60 hour shift. On the way home from work Monday morning I stopped by Petco and got some Timothy hay, because I’d forgotten to get some when I bought her. She still had the exact amount of pellets I had left her with on Friday and she didn’t seem interested in the hay either. She seemed to be doing okay, she was still pooping (although, since I had never seen her "normal" ones, I didn’t realize how small and dried up they were) and I let her out of the cage. She wandered around in the kitchen for a bit, licking the floor, which I found peculiar, and then just sort of lounged around a bit on the tile floor. I tried to call the pet store to see what brand pellets they had been giving her but couldn’t get through to anyone, so I decided I would just drive up there the next day (it was about 45 minutes from my house). At this point I was thinking I had brought home a sick rabbit.

The next morning I woke up, hopped on the internet, typed in "rabbit won’t eat" on yahoo, and the first thing that comes up is: "rabbit’s won’t eat if they don’t have water". I went over to the cage, pressed on the tip of that expensive water bottle I had bought, and crikey’s nothing came out. I put water in a little dish and gave it to her and she went nuts, lapping it up like crazy. about five minutes after that she started chowing down on pellets and hay.

I consider it a miracle that she made it those four days with no food or water, but thankfully she’s happy and healthy now (she’s almost up to 2 pounds!).  Every new pet should definately go to the vet, but I also think one of the first things people should ask those with an anorexic rabbit is "does the rabbit have a working water supply". I simply assumed that this bottle would work, not knowing that this type of bottle uses a spring to push on the ball which can cause it to be too tight or to leak. That little bit of knowledge saved my rabbits life, which is good because it can take a couple of days to get in to see a vet.