Rabbit not eating/drinking – Double check your vet

[ReggieTheRabbit]

So for the past week my rabbit, Reginald, hasn’t been eating or drinking… I know, a week! He should have given up by now if he wasn’t longed for the world right?

He knocked his paw recently and has kicked up a fuss about it… a fairly simple vet transaction, where without really studying him they agreed with our guess and prescribed appetite enhancers and painkillers.anyone with experience will probably agree that Emeprid is a bit of a joke. If a rabbit doesn’t want to eat, it’s usually due to pain and they in fact have a huge desire to eat!!!

So… appetite isn’t the issue, it’s their health! This will only make matters worse and your rabbit will likely be struggling with this as this will cause them further discomfort.

4 days in, and he still hasn’t eaten other than cucumber to give him water and parsley treats.. because rabbits will run through FIRE to get a bit of parsley in biscuit form!

We ring our vets, companion care/ vets for pets… they proceed to tell us they wish to xray his paw with us saying he had recovered from this and his paw was not an issue (oh… and they wanted £380!)
This raised our suspicions, and we sought a second opinion from the RSPCA, who said to basically give up hope on our energetic boy who seemed to not have lost any personality or had any desire to die!

We were later told the nearest rabbit specialist is 30 miles away, which raises the question of how a vet can diagnose a pet and give it medicine when they clearly have no knowledge of the animal, and we all know how individual and specialist rabbits are ?.

The tunbridge wells vet called after 2 days of chasing, and we told them that on that day, he decided to eat hay when we put it in a silver ball and hung it from his cage, something we had left tucked away for a while.. we read about GI stasis in rabbits and decided to try massaging his stomach and seeing if it helped him to start up his body, as we don’t have a penny to our name right now for more bills.. we’d recently given them £300 for his teeth.

Within 10 minutes he was eating and drinking (only from a bowl mind you).. we were told by the specialist they agreed it was a stomach issue, and saving us £380 have now prescribed stomach muscle ikickstarters (xanex) and more pain killers. All since we took him OFF appetite enhancers!
He is back to eating pellets after multiple massages and I will keep you posted on the medicine and how it works, but my advice to anyone in a similar circumstance:

Does your rabbit have energy or are they curling up to hide? If he is full of himself he isn’t in the danger zone quite yet, despite how well they do hiding illness you WILL know the difference

Is your vet fully rabbit savvy? Otherwise you will pay £700 on multiple tests when trying new things and tricks, and considering all options through the web can lead to a simple prescription.

Does your rabbit have a issue of non eating regularly? Ours did, and it was a gut issue! If so, I think this is a very common cause and you need to suggest this to ensure they are tested as if it affects them worse than Reggie, they may turn over night!

Is your vet money hungry? Ask to speak to specialists and ensure you ask for advice based on info! They will talk things through on the phone to avoid a consultation fee or tests if they’re certain, as the cheapest option when they’re ill is to put them to sleep, or so they will tell you if you refuse fees! Don’t take this as option 1 and give them some time and lots of liquid food and support if they’re energetic, as it took Reggie 7 days to recover, and the x rays could have only cost time and money!

Last…………
Insurance will not cover you! Fact! Ours exclude mouth and stomach, so if the issue is serious like ours, you’ll probably be out of luck, so explore options and get second opinions wherever possible! Don’t pay £1000 to find out theyre just sulking.

But……..
Always be sure.. this advice is for those who know their rabbits and aren’t able to pay for operations. If your bunny is ill, and seriously so. And your living ability won’t be affected to a bad extent by going through a vet make sure you do all you can! But still, suggest what you think it will be, but don’t let your vet just agree with you for the sake of it, or try and latch onto small bits of info without consulting a specialist.. if they aren’t one!

Good luck, and do what’s right.

[Sirius&Luna]

This is why its important to find a rabbit savvy vet as soon as you get your bunny – you don’t want to be rushing around trying to find one when they’re sick. I don’t think its sensible to advise people not to go to the vet though, I don’t believe that all vets are just trying to get as much money out of you as possible. I’m sorry you had a bad experience and I’m glad your bunny is doing better.

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