Hi everyone,
I’m new here. I’m a long time animal lover but a new pet owner. Chocolate the rabbit is my first pet. I’ve had him for about three and a half years now. He is dark brown and weights 4.5 lbs. He is somewhere around 5 or 6 years old. He has been acting sort of strangely lately…at first I wondered if he was sick, but I don’t think he is. It may just be signs of age and not actually be anything to be concerned about, but I would like some ideas on what you all think is going on with Chocolate.
One thing that has been going on for a while is that he has been going off of his pellets somewhat. He used to practically inhale his pellets, so I broke up the ration into three smaller portions (about three tablespoons each) throughout the day and began moistening them a little bit with water. We’ve been doing that for the past year or so until the past couple of months when I noticed that he started going off of them some–not a whole lot I guess, but his morning ration is still there by late afternoon sometimes and his night ration is still there by morning. He’s still eating them, just less and at a slower pace. He still eats hay and veggies really well and still leaves me lots of healthy looking little mountains of “cocoa puffs” to clean up.
One of the things that made me think that he was sick at first is that he has been sitting down in an uncomfortable sort of way. I don’t know how to explain it, but he just sits with his hindquarters at a funny angle in relation to his front. He also seems more reluctant to move around and he generally seems more subdued and even kinda jumpy at times. Not that he ever was a real bouncing-off-the-walls type of rabbit or anything, but he seems less willing to hop around and explore than before. One think that I check for with Chocolate when I think he is having a digestion problem is checking to see if the area behind his ribcage but in front of his hips feels hollow. He does feel somewhat hollow, but I am still hearing his gurgling tummy sounds and like I said before he is still eating and pooping. I have also given him a little bit of pineapple juice, but he is still the same. This has been going on for about two weeks.
I just started clicker training him, also for around two weeks, but it is supposed to be a animal-friendly training system so I don’t think it could possibly cause enough stress that it would affect an animal’s everyday life. Could it be that the clicking sound scares him? He was doing pretty good with it: he got the ‘touch’ and spinning clockwise trick down, and were working on getting him to stand up on his back legs when he stopped wanting to play the clicker game. Its a regular box type clicker, and I try to keep it in a pocket while I click so its not quite as loud. I haven’t been giving him tons of treats either, mostly I just give him his regular food, but occasionally I’d give him a raisin or a bit of dried apple. I’ve stopped clicking with him for now–he started going into a box or into a corner and would not come out and sometimes make an unhappy grunting sound. Could it be that I’ve been pushing him too hard or trying to get him to learn too fast?
Also, the other day, he sat right in front of his cage (where is litter pan also is) and pooped a lot right in front of the ramp. It made me wonder if, really, he is just getting old and it is getting harder for him to move around, jump into his cage, and maybe he is just frustrated. I’ve been thinking about getting him another cage that he can walk in and out of and not have to jump in.
Like I said before I’d appreciate any insights you all might have in relation to my bun’s behavior.
Concerned Rabbit Parent,
Brown Hare
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