I need help x.x Luna post op….still

[Alisha]

Okay so Luna has been super pissed off for days after her spay. If you read my other posts then you know the drama but I won’t make you go read everything. She basically ran into complications during her spay which caused the surgery to become way more comlicated and she has a very large incision covering half her stomach held together by staples. There were a lot of opinions whether this added up or not or if the vet made a mistake but that’s another story. 

Basically I get the vet back on the phone asking about her aggression and also a weird question asking if they removed any fat from her body because I can feel her ribs and hips and everything so well when I pet her – it was just a little worrying to me. She told me that there was fat connected to the uterus and other things and when they were removed – so was the fat. She also told me that she thinks Luna needs a higher pain med dose and also should come in to get an opioid shot so I took her in to get new meds and get that shot. She said this shot would last 3 days and it would totally chill her out and she wouldn’t be in pain and be in a better mood. 

…Nope.

She’s still attacking me if I make any sudden movements she wasn’t expecting. She hates when I try to put food in her bowl? I gave her fresh greens and some dried rose buds because she likes those and she basically just tips over the bowl and throws it around for a little while then starts digging at the food and ripping it up. She’ll take a nibble sometimes but mostly she’s just mad it exists. 

She does have a poopy butt problem. I’m trying to give her more critical care than I have been. Idk if that’s pissing her off maybe? I don’t think she’s backed up or anything but she does have tiny tiny irregular shaped poops just coming out and sticking to her bum and the vet said it was just because she’s not eating enough. I don’t know what to do. It’s been almost a week since the procedure. 

Any input would be great. 

Additional question: can they still spray after surgery?? When she gets mad, I can suddenly smell that strong musky smell right? I thought that would go away if she had things surgically removed…guess not?

[Sirius&Luna]

Post-spay aggression and anger isn’t unusual – there’s normally a hormonal surge after these surgeries, so it could well be related to that rather than necessarily pain related. But obviously since she had the traumatic surgery, its important to consider all options. Could you not ask the vet for some metacam to give twice a day too?

Weight-wise – rabbits can lose weight pretty quickly when they’re not eating, so it might just be an after effect of appetite loss after the surgery, combined with some fat being removed during the surgery.

What’s her appetite like? Is she eating hay by herself?

Tiny sticky poops sounds like cecatropes – do you think its cecos? Maybe its painful for her to reach them, so she’s not eating them?

They can definitely still mark/spray after surgery i’m afraid, they’re just generally less inclined. I imagine in a month or two it will have calmed down.

[Alisha]

She is on metacam twice a day. She even gave me more and upped the dose.

And she munches a tiny tiny bit on things here and there. a little hay.. a nibble of greens but nothing much else. I can’t get her to eat so I have to force a syringe full of critical care down her throat.

I didn’t really think about the cecotropes thing because I usually see those all in one piece so maybe she’s not eating them and they’re falling apart on her bum? I’m not sure.

[Bam]

You are doing everything right.

As S&L says, it’s common for rabbits to get into sth called a post-spay craze after being de-sexed. It has to do with the body and brain adjusting to the sudden stop of sex-hormone production. It basically means the rabbit’s sexually driven behaviors can get worse just after a spay. Territoriality, pee-and poop marking and aggression etc are all to a great extent sexually motivated behaviors. In girl animals, there can also be an upregulation of testosterone production in the adrenal glands as some sort of compensatory mechanism. Sex hormones also have a big impact on mood. If there’s a hormonal imbalance, as in your bun’s system right now, mood suffers. In a way you can think of a spay as going into full blown menopause just overnight (unless you find that notion too gross), no gradual change, no hormone replacement therapy, just WHAM.

Anyway, a post-spay craze is all normal and the differential is pain. You and your vet have dealt with the possibility of pain. That’s great, because pain certainly doesn’t make you feel less inclined to aggression. That the aggression persists despite more pain meds, points towards a post spay craze. The smelly spray-marking supports this theory. A post spay craze resolves itself, but it can take a while. With a boy, it usually doesn’t last more than two weeks, but with a girl, it can be months. Eventually though, the body and brain adjusts.

It’s normal for a bun to have a bit of poop irregularities for about 2 weeks after invasive surgery like a spay. Anesthesia in itself slows the digestive tract, then there’s the normal post anestesia inappetence. Pain of course also affect appetite negatively. If she gets mostly critical care and not her normal diet, her gut microbiota will be a bit disrupted. This means you can get extra cecals and fecal poops with a funny shape or constitency. The bun might not need to eat all her cecals, if she is producing extra. It also seems likely that she could have difficulties reaching for them due to the surgical scar.

If you have kitchen scales, maybe you could weigh her. I’m assuming your vet weighed her before the surgery, they do that to figure out how much anesthetics to give. You could ask them for her baseline weight. As S&L also says, buns can lose weight really quickly if they’re not eating. This is of course bad and you might have to give her a bigger dose of CC daily. Some vets can also be willing to show you how to give sub q fluids at home, as an extra measure of supportive care.

You are very welcome to ask as many questions as you want to here. We’re all rooting for you and Luna =)

[Alisha]

Thank you guys Yes that makes sense. I hope it doesn’t last forever so I can free roam her again because she deserves the space. I had to build a huge NIC grid condo for her after the hormonal stuff got to be too much. The carpet is shredded in multiple areas…I’m not getting that deposit back hahaha Poor bun.. I wish I could do more.

[LBJ10]

I agree. I think she just needs some time. Things will calm down once her body has adjusted.

[Author]

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