Pellet Problems

[Kayla&Ozzy]

Hey everyone,

I’m in a bit of a pickle with Ozzy and his pellets right now. He absolutely adores them, but occasionally (more specifically, this has happened a couple times every other month since March when he had a bad bout of stasis) I will see that after eating them he becomes uncomfortable. It kind of looks like stasis in that he’ll press his tummy to the floor and shifts around quite a bit, but it rarely goes any further than that and lasts about half an hour to 45 minutes. If it gets past that, his vet has given me meds that get his tummy moving and it seems to do the trick.

Needless to say, even though he comes out of it every time, it’s very stressful! And he also picks the worst days to do it; yesterday he started an hour before I had to leave for a midterm. 

Does anyone know what could be causing this? When it does happen, it literally starts right after he’s finished his pellets in the morning. I’m wondering if the chewed up pellets cause a brief blockage in there? He barely gets any pellets as it is and I’d hate to take them away from him entirely (especially because he’s a very picky veggie-eater and I can’t imagine being able to get him to eat as many as he’d need without pellets), but I’m not sure what else to do. He does eat them very quickly and I’m curious if that has anything to do with it. I just now mixed his pellets with some veggies to try and slow down how fast he eats them… lo and behold there’s a pile of untouched veggies all over the floor and the pellets are all gone! But no tummy trouble today!

Any advice would be vastly appreciated.

[Jadeo09]

1/4 cup is recommended amount of pellets for an average size adult maybe he eats to many?
My specialist vet says only to feed hay no veg or pellets.
But I feed my rabbit dried herbs and weeds made for rabbits instead they are more natural encourage foraging and are better for their tums and teeth.
May be a good idea for your bun.
Also if you do insist on pellets you can try gradually changing over to a grain free pellet as some rabbits like mine are allergic.
Your bun won’t appreciate feeling bad afterwards and you should be able to find something he both enjoys and doesn’t cause him pain.

Here are the grain free pellets.
If your struggling let me know what country you are in if you would like me to try to find something suitable you can get hold of

http://m.zooplus.co.uk/shop/small_pets/food/versele_laga/rabbit/434247

Good luck

[Kayla&Ozzy]

I had been giving him 1/4 cup at the start of the year, but since his stasis in March he gets less than half of that now. His pellet intake is probably as minimal as minimal can get, haha.

I think I may look into grain-free pellets and see how that goes over with him, but if it still persists it’ll probably be time to cut them out entirely. It’s just so weird that it doesn’t happen all the time. He will go one or two months without incident and then randomly one day, his tummy gets upset.

Thanks for the info!

[Jadeo09]

Have you had his teeth checked? That can be an underlying cause.
Some rabbits get tummy problems from hair being stuck do you notice string on pearl type poops? Sorry that’s a bit minging.
Doesn’t sound like the pellets of its not all the time. Could he be occasionally eating something he shouldn’t. Maybe something to bung him up, too much cardboard.
My rabbit gets bad tum very rarely I get my vibrating massager out, lie her on her back and put it on her tummy, she’s pretty OK with it now because it must feel nice on her poorly tummy and lies next to it.
Clears her up in an hour or so plus I keep metacam in just in case and give her some as directed by my vet ☺

[Kayla&Ozzy]

His teeth were checked out back in August for any issues and it was all clear, thankfully. Now that you mention the hair, though… he’s definitely had a few poops that are stranded together with hair. I didn’t even think about that!

I have since taken him off pellets; I think what was happening was the chewed up pellets were making the problem worse in his stomach. He’s been doing great, still adjusting to just veggies and hay (pellets were probably the highlight of his day, aside from the raisin he gets in the morning!) but he’s still acting like his usual self and I’ve seen no signs of discomfort. I’m also seeing less of the hairy poops, so it seems all that fibre did its job and cleared some of it out.

Thanks for the advice!

[Bam]

I’m glad you sorted it out. Some bunnies just can’t have pellets. Since pellets are not absolutely essential to an adult bunny, you can cut out pellets from the diet if you provide good quality hay and vegs. We recommend a small daily amount of good quality pellets here because it’s an easy way for the owner to ensure that the daily requirements of nutrients are met, but there are cases where pellets should be left out of the diet entirely. Like it seems to be with your bun. The symptoms you describe seem to me like symptoms of gas. That’s of course enourmously uncomfortable for a bunny and can lead to full-blown stasis, so if he does better without the pellets, that’s the way to go imo.
More and more vets recommend hay as the main food source for rabbits. Rabbits are foliovores, meaning they eat leaves (of grass, primarily). Really skinny, high-fibre food with a very low nutritional value that they can and should eat lots of during the day, that’s what their tummies and teeth are “designed” for. Pellets I think were originally though up as food for meat-rabbits as a way to fatten them up as quickly as possible, much like broiler chickens. This is not what we want with our house-rabbits, we want them to live long, healthy lives =)

[Kayla&Ozzy]

I was originally hoping it was something else causing the problem, but it definitely seems like it was the pellets. I feel a little guilty about taking them away from him, but I’m sure he’ll learn to live without them.

Fortunately he’s a huuuge hay-eater, he gets quite excited when the bag comes out for top-offs in his hay rack (for some reason he adores those seed-heads). My only concern is that he’s never been much of a veggie eater. I’ve tried just about every type I can get my hands on and spring mix is the only thing he’ll touch, but even then he’ll eat his hay long before he considers nibbling the veggies. It’s only been about a week since I took him off pellets, so maybe with time he’ll grow to like the vegetables more, but I’m worried he might not be getting everything he needs. :s

[Author]

Messages