Best Way to Get Pill Into Rabbit

[Lucky Star]

My vet gave me some antibiotics in the form of tablets to get rid of Cinnabun’s sneezing. Does anyone have a great way to hide the tablets so that the rabbit will eat it? 

[JackRabbit]

If the pills are ok to crush, you could crush them and put in a little bit of applesauce, banana, pure pumkin puree, or other mushy treat.

[Lucky Star]

JackRabbit- Thanks! The pills are ok to crush. Cinnabun’s favorite treat is apples, so I’ll try applesauce tonight.

[Stickerbunny]

If he won’t take the pills (I know mine wouldn’t, liquid is hard enough) you could always see if you can request some in liquid form.

[Lucky Star]

Thanks for the advice stickerbunny!
I haven’t tried a dose yet, so I’ll see how it goes tonight, but he is the more picky of my two boys. I have only previously needed to use liquids for rabbits, so I just syringe fed it and it went fine. Fingers crossed he eats it!

[LBJ10]

I just got this hilarious visual of someone trying to make a rabbit swallow a pill.

[Lucky Star]

LBJ- Honestly, I was thinking I would get a lot of comments like “Um….. through its mouth” but I was hoping people would figure out what I meant.

[Roberta]

When Jebediah kitteh was diagnosed with cancer he had to have pills, very small ones but even then getting them into his sore little mouth after the surgeries was not something I wanted to try. I crushed them as finely as I could, mixed them with water and syringed it into his mouth. You could try a diluted applesauce with the powdered pills mixed in.

[LBJ10]

Lucky Star – Of course we know what you meant, I don’t know anyone who has had a rabbit actually swallow a pill. Perhaps it’s possible though, I guess you never know! Now I could tell you the hilarious instructions the vet put on the medicine for the eagle (where I work). LOL

I would think applesauce or banana would be good to hide the crushed pills in. The only problem I can see is if the pills actually taste bad and the applesauce/banana do not cover up the taste.

[Stickerbunny]

Posted By LBJ10 on 8/13/2014 7:00 PM

I just got this hilarious visual of someone trying to make a rabbit swallow a pill.

Haha that would be a sight. It’s hard enough when I need to get a dog to swallow a pill, they always seem to know when a piece of food is hiding yucky medicine and eat around it. I can’t imagine trying to get Stickers to do it. She spits out the liquid onto me as it is. 

[JackRabbit]

If a pill was in a piece of cheese (smooshed all around the pill) or bread, our dog could eat the cheese or bread and spit the pill on the floor in less than 2 seconds flat!

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

My dog takes huge pills thinly disguised in cheese, he’s so easy.

Gosh but I cant imagine trying to get a rabbit to take a pill! I agree with the others-try crushing or call the crazy vet who thought pills and rabbits mix and request a liquid Good luck!

[Lucky Star]

Thanks for the advice everyone! Sadly, it appears Cinnabun does NOT like applesauce. He is a neat freak of a rabbit and was horrified by how messy this was! It got into his whiskers and he looked at me like “What is the big idea here? Are you trying to make me groom extra hard? Ugh! Stupid human, I just groomed an hour ago!”

I will buy some bananas today and try that, my only problem is that he doesn’t like the dried bananas I have. Cinnabun has always preferred crunchy things, so I am not sure he will eat normal bananas if he won’t eat dried bananas. Does anyone have any other ideas? I was thinking I might try just pouring some fruit juice on it (maybe pure apple juice or papaya juice) and seeing if he will just eat the pill like that. He eats papaya tablets every night so I was hoping he wouldn’t notice the different if I can make it smell like papaya. (The pill is more of a tablet. It is chewable and breakable but doesn’t smell nice so I doubt it tastes nice).

Any other pieces of advice? The only time I have ever had to syringe feed is when the rabbit was too sick or drugged to care about fighting back. Cinnabun is completely healthy except for the sneezing and I can already tell he would hate it if I had to syringe feed him (I will if I have to, but he already doesn’t like touching around the face and he doesn’t like wet things in his mouth so the combination just doesn’t seem very good for him).

[Lucky Star]

Also-
Jack Rabbit and Kokanee- I have two dogs. One eats a pill fine so long as it has any amount of food on it. The other can find a pill no matter what we hide it in. Isn’t it funny how different they can be? I wonder why the one dog never told the other one not to eat the pill…..

[Sarita]

See if this video will help you:

http://www.howcast.com/videos/514683-How-to-Give-a-Rabbit-a-Pill-Pet-Rabbits

[Lucky Star]

Thanks Sarita! I’ll go try that and see how it goes! Maybe since it isn’t as messy he will eat it that way

[Lucky Star]

LBJ- I was just re-reading the comments and it hit me- There is an eagle where you work? That’s awesome! Where do you work? Or at least what kind of job? Like an accounting firm with an eagle or like a zoo with an eagle?

[JackRabbit]

Nice video Sarita.

Lucky Star – Before crushing the pill into the banana, you might see if he likes straight banana. I imagine strawberry or papaya could be done the same way if he doesn’t like banana. Or mango (yum!). Also, mine fight syringe force feeding but will lick meds right from the syringe if I hold it and slowly dispense (without holding the bunny — its a control thing with them!). Its worth a try!

[JackRabbit]

Sarita — I’ve seen other “how to” videos of hers. She always makes everything look so easy and the bunnies are so cooperative! I wish she would make a video on “how to get your bunny to cooperate”!!!

[Sarita]

She probably just videos with the most cooperative rabbits :~)

[LBJ10]

Lucky Star – LOL, yep my accounting firm has an eagle for a mascot. Nah, I work at a park that has a bird sanctuary and nature center. And believe me, there is no way we could administer anything to her by mouth. Not if we value our limbs, that is.

[Author]

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