Hi guys,
Sorry for this winded post! I just adopted my bunny, Gulliver, on Saturday. As background: my last little one, Lola, passed suddenly in December from a presumed septic infection (she was fine the day before, then wouldn’t eat that day – 3 emergency visits that day and she passed away on the car ride home). Lola was a bunny I found dumped outdoors with chronic dental issues, so her age and history are anyone’s guess. She was a little hot mess, and sassy as all get out, but we loved her. She was a black and white spotted ~5 pounder. Gulliver is a 15 pound, 1 year old Flemish Giant. We weren’t going to adopt another bunny because losing Lola was traumatic, but he stole our hearts. ANYWAY…..
We just moved into the house on Saturday and have had to do some flooring work. It’s been quite noisy. Gulliver is a social rabbit and the rescue said he has no fears, but he is definitely stressed right now. He is in his own bedroom in an x-pen with a cardboard box to hide in. Since Saturday afternoon, I haven’t see him eat much more than a few pieces of hay and three treats. He flips his pellet bowl over and spills them everywhere and I can’t tell if he hates the bowl or the pellets (though he is getting the pellets he ate at the rescue now – he was on juvenile pellets and I made the mistake of offering him adult pellets – oh the horror!). He will eat the hay if we hand it to him, and he doesn’t eat treats in front of us but they are missing when I come back later in the day. His favorite thing to do is take what we offer and then drop it. His fecal pellet production is also decreased – he produced about 15 yesterday afternoon that I could count. He is still bright, wanting to come out of his pen, and willing to stretch out on his belly around us. He is also molting like CRAZY right now and as such is very cringy when we touch him – he is also super itchy. We are trying to help groom him, but don’t want to add more stress. He is still drinking water and urinating, but again, not as much as I would like.
My concern is this: if his behavior is stress related, I am hesitant to rush him to the vet and induce more stress. However, I am also VERY concerned about health issues like GI stasis, especially because of what happened with Lola. What does everyone recommend? The rescue didn’t give him greens because she said meat rabbits can’t handle them, and his breed (being a meat rabbit breed) cannot eat them, but my vet said he needs them. Should I try to entice him with a little bit of parsley to see if this will jump start him on eating? Should I give him more time? Or do I pack him up and bring him to the vet tonight?
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