Peppy is sick

[peppypoo]

My Peppy girl is sick…and I’m so worried about her.  She’s lethargic, has bad diarrhea (completely liquid) and refusing to eat even her treats and fresh greens.  She has presented with the exact same symptoms before (on Halloween night) and we ended up taking her to the emergency vet.  There were no rabbit specialists there…we had to make do with a vet who’d had previous rabbit experience.  They ruled out the possibility of parasites and said that she either had a hairball, or enterotoxemia leading to GI stasis; upon palpation, her entire abdominal area was rigid.  They hooked her up to a saline IV drip for hydration, as well as for intravenous antibiotics and syringe-fed critical care formula…after two stressed-out nights, she was finally eating’drinking better and we took her home and kept her on oral antibiotics (and pineapple juice for good measure) for 10 days.

Though her condition improved last time with treatment, we never had an exact diagnosis…who knows if the treatment actually had any effect.  My boyfriend said she has been shedding huge loads of hair these past few days…I don’t know if the hair could have caused a physical blockage (I’ve heard contrasting opinions on whether or not hairballs are even possible in rabbits) or if her sickness and subsequent stress caused the shedding.

We still have leftover antibiotics from last time, but my suspicion is that these will be largely useless now, and don’t want to tax her kidneys and liver excessively at the moment.  The boyfriend’s run out to get some fresh pineapple juice (can’t hurt right?) and we’re going to take to the emergency vet again in maybe an hour or two if nothing is looking up  She has left a reasonable amount of poop since her litter box was last changed (last night) and gobbled up her pellets earlier in the day…my boyfriend said that she only started presenting with lethargy maybe an hour ago as far as he can tell.

Sigh, why does Peppy always have to get sick on the weekends?? None of the rabbit-savvy vets are available in the area until Monday. I hope so much my girly will be okay…

[LoveChaCha]

Rabbits groom a lot.. and sometimes, they ingest their fur, thus the stringy poops sometimes.

Has your boyfriend been grooming Peppy bun?

Have you gotten him to feed her some Oat hay?

I hope that she’ll be okay.
My friend’s bunny had the same symptoms as what your Peppy is having I’d get her to the vet asap.

[peppypoo]

So Peppy was moping around and refusing food…until she hopped up, started playing with her toys, and gobbled down her cilantro.

I was so very worried last time since she was in terrible shape for days before she started passing poos/eating normally, and she was presenting the exact same symptoms. Seems like the problem spontaneously resolved itself this time, huhh  

We’re still watching her carefully, but she seems fine…passing normal poos too. How very strange.

[Momto3boys]

I hope she continues to feel better, it’s so scary when something is wrong with one of them.

[Monkeybun]

Keep an eye on her, make sure she eats lots and lots of hay. And if she is shedding, definitely brush her lots. Get better Peppy!

[peppypoo]

Thanks for the well wishes guys! Peppy is up and about destroying things like nothing ever happened…oh the trouble and stress that little bun has caused me, and she has no idea…

[GrumpyBun]

SO glad she is feeling better!

[Beka27]

I’m going to move this topic to the “House Rabbit Q&A” subforum. The “Support” section is to memorialize bunnies who have passed over the bridge.

[Author]

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