Poor bun constantly sick :(

[pminde]

Hello,
we have been having some issues with our 5 1/2 year old female lion head rabbit.

She is often (at least once every 2 weeks) going into a stasis type of illness. She will stop eating and pooping and act very lethargic with a tight stomach. We are not sure what is causing this. We have had to take her to the vet to treat this multiple times.
We feed her Timothy hay throughout the day, which she normally loves. We also give her a cup of mixed vegetables (baby spinach, arugula, chard…) as well as a small amount of “special greens” (usually bok choy, collard greens, or kale).
We do not feed her pellets.

When she goes into this behavior we can often get her to feel better with 2 or 3 forced feedings of Critical Care and sometimes some pain medication. We will also do gentle stomach massaging.

We do not know what to do, and the vet only tells us that we can bring her in for medicine and that an X-ray is pointless because if they find anything, it will be too risky to operate on her.

Thank you for any insight and help! It is so sad to see our poor girl struggle like this

[Wick & Fable]

To be honest, I would try cutting back significantly on veggie variety and incorporating pellets to reliably meet the nutritional requirements in your rabbit’s diet. When thinking about regular GI distress, something(s) in the diet can be the culprit. Maintaining a pellet-free diet requires a lot of veggie variety and intentional planning of portions and distribution of the veggies to ensure a well-rounded nutritional consumption. That can be much more easily met with adjusting to a good-quality pellet, and can be easier on the gut (or just help people figure out what their rabbit is sensitive to without omitting nutrients from the diet). Is there a particular reason you are not feeding pellets?

See here for some insights on pellet-free diets: https://wabbitwiki.com/wiki/Pellet-free_diet

The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.

[DanaNM]

I agree that there could be a veggie that is upsetting her gut. Some rabbits are sensitive to greens, or to a specific type of green. Does she generally have a good appetite for hay?

Since she is fully adult, you could try going on a hay only diet (if she eats her hay well normally) for several weeks to see if that helps. Then you can gradually add a veggie back in each week to see if that is the culprit.

I also wonder about her teeth. At her age bone density starts to shift a bit so dental issues can pop up. Dental pain can cause gut slowdowns on its own, and also can cause them to eat less hay. Has the vet done a dental exam with anesthesia or dental x-rays? That might be my next step if it hasn’t been considered.

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[pminde]

Thank you so much for the responses!

She’s doing better today with quite a few rounds of CC and a single dose of pain meds. She’s back  to eating hay, yet a little less than she normally does, so i think she is still recovering. She is back to being pretty perky like before.

As far as why we haven’t had pellets in her diet since she was very young, honestly, its because we had one vet when she was young that was very persistent that pellets will cause more issues than anything. The argument was that they were too high in calories and fat. We had seen on similar forums that pellets could cause issues, but now I see that we did not look far enough into this. I think we will slowly bring back small portions of pellets to make sure she is getting adequate nutrition from her diet. Thank you for that link to pellet nutrition and research. It really helps with decisions. We are also going to stick to one or two kinds of veggies for awhile and try to figure out if any certain greens give her issues.

We are going to try to get scheduled a blood test and X-rays. During her last appointment they told us that her teeth were good and did not see any issues. There is only 1 bunny-savvy vet in this area, and I honestly don’t believe that they are truly a bunny specialist because of the way they somewhat pushed off some questions we had about bunny health and lifestyle. I have tried to find local facebook groups but have had no luck. We are in the Spokane, Washington area. I will continue to search out bun parents and try to connect more.

We absolutely hate seeing bun suffer and can’t help but blame ourselves for it. We want to make it better and will do whatever we can to achieve a comfortable life for her.

Thank you again for the help!

[Ellie from The Netherlands]

Awww, poor girl… I hope that the pellets will help to stabilise her gut.

The worry that pellets are too high in calories and fat is only partially true. There are pellets who are very poorly balanced out, but there are many good brands these days.

This is a great website with a comparison chart between the brands, it shows which pellets meet the proper nutritional guidelines: http://www.therabbithouse.com/diet/rabbit-food-comparison.asp

Tip for feeding pellets: the recommended amount by vets is 25 g/kg rabbit per day. That’s a lot less than some manufacturers advise. Ours would have our bunnies eat 80 g of pellets a day, while they should get about 32 g with their small size.

Tip for fussy tummies: our previous bunny Breintje had a very sensitive system too, and it improved when we switched to grain-free pellets. These pellets have less starch and fewer carbs. They consist mostly of herbs, grasses, vegetable protein, vitamins and minerals, and a little seed oil.

[DanaNM]

It’s so frustrating when you don’t trust your vet 100%, I just landed in a similar situation myself!

Hopefully you can get to the bottom of things with some tweaks to the diet! I’m sure you know this, but with any diet additions it’s important to go very gradually, especially with bun that’s having some GI issues.

Sometimes adding a variety of hays seems to help as well. I recall a conference talk where a vet presented that they were having huge reductions in stasis visits after switching the buns to a blend of three grass hays (timothy, bermuda, and orchard I believe). If your bun ends up on a somewhat restricted diet, adding a new grass hay or two could be really good for her.

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

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