Help! Rabbit Ate Chocolate

[xcheyennetaylor]

So I had a small bowl of about 4 or 5 hershey’s christmas egg ball thingies that are about dime sized and I went to watch a tv program for an hour, come back and my rabbit had gotten ahold of them and eaten them all. He seems to be normal. I put him in his cage with hay and his water so I could keep a close eye on him without him hopping to his hideaways. He’s eating his hay and he has drank some water. This all happened in the span of about an hour and a half now. I’m having a panic attack and am not sure what to do. Is he going to be okay? Should I take him to the emergency vet? Should I wait it out? Should I hold him and pet him so he stays calm and not so hyped? What do I do and will my bunny be okay???? 

He’s now laying down in his cage. 

[Mimsy]

Was it milk chocolate? Milk chocolate doesn’t have that high amount of chocolate compared to dark or bakers chocolate. I’m not sure how sensitive rabbits are to chocolate, but if they are anything like dogs, it takes quite a bit of milk chocolate to be lethal.

The high amount of sugar is probably not very healthy, but hopefully not harmful with a one time incident.

I’d look around and make sure there isn’t any more within bunny reach. Was he on a couch or something he may of dropped some into a cushion, or under it.

Hopefully someone who knows more about chocolate toxicity and rabbits chimes in.

[Bam]

As Mimsy says, if it’s milk-chocolate, the amount of chocolate in them isn’t very high. Hay and water and watch him is great and just what you’re doing. And don’t panic, you don’t want to stress him out, it makes pets stressed when their owners freak out. If he wants to be pet, you can do that.

If you feel you have to call your vet, they’ll want to know if it was milk or dark chocolate and the approx weight of the chocolate ingested and the weight of the bunny, because that’s how they calculate the toxicity, so you can try figure that out (don’t weigh your bunny, just make a guess) and write it down in case you need the info.

Above all, stay calm. Rabbits often eat things they shouldn’t. If he starts looking very uncomfortable, breathes funny, starts twitching etc, call vet asap. 

[xcheyennetaylor]

Okay! It was milk chocolate so that’s good I guess. He’s being really normal so far. Eating hay still and drinking water, just being his normal self. I’ve been watching his poops though just to see if it turns into diarrhea. I did call an emergency vet just to ask and she told me that the best thing I can do is to wait 24 hours and if something is really wrong that I’ll know. I’m hoping everything stays okay though. There’s no more that he could eat, I searched all over just in case. What is abnormal bunny behavior? Because Luna has hyper spurts throughout the day anyway so I don’t really know what to look for in a sugar high in rabbits.

Appreciate the responses guys, I really thought it was going to end so badly, but it seems that it might be okay. 

[Bam]

The abnormal behaviors to worry about are things like a seizure (obviously) and weird noisy breathing, and then there are the “regular” signs of sth being wrong like refusal to eat, the bunny sits hunched up and looks miserable, doesn’t poop, presses (actively, like a push-up) his belly against the floor, hides in a weird place and refuses to come out.

Chocolate (or rather the poison theobromin in chocolate) makes an animal hyper, so maybe you should restrict his movements some and don’t let him run around like a bunny on fire. Just for the next few hours. It does sound like he’ll be fine!

He may get a bit of sticky poop/poopy butt later, and if he does and his butt gets messy, you can give him a butt-bath.

[xcheyennetaylor]

It’s been about 12 hours or so now and thins seem to still be fine. No weird poops yet, still eating and drinking normally, and no super hyperactivity. I’m still monitoring him closely though, and am debating whether or not to give him his 1/4 cup of pellets and 1.5oz of veggies for the day like usual. I think it’ll all be okay. I was so scared though, thankful for everyones advice! If anything changes and goes downhill I’ll be making a trip to the vet today, but for now I’ll just keep watching him like I have been. Can’t believe he did that though the little stinker. 

[Bam]

Bunnies are terrible animals, always trying to scare the wits out of their owners =)

12 hours sounds great! If you like you can perhaps cut back a tiny bit on the pellets since pellets are rich, but greens are good and hay is great. You may still get a bit of extra cecals or some sticky poop, but those are very minor issues in this context and the tummy will right itself with hay.

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