Small, strange things….

[Balefulregards]

So nothing is “wrong” per se with Coco – She is pooping ( I just cleaned her litter/Bedding).

She IS eating – but not as much of her greens. She still seems interested in her hay and very interested in her pellets.

At first I simply thought she was having “salad burnout” – perhaps she was really sick of red leaf lettuce and parsley? So I made the salad VERY wet at the last two feeings ( as I have not been seeing her drink much water – she has a bottle, no interest in a crock by her)

And her eating picked up a bit. More interest in the very wet greens, which she munched down on.

But she was kind of lethargic, so I watched her for a while. Thought about the last two days of behavior.

And there are odd, little things. Out of character. So I offer them to you all to see if there are connections I am not making.

1. Not eating all of her cecals. – I found one pile ( with my foot) in the middle of the carpet that she left there. Very unusual. I found another pile today, dried , in the area of her hay.

2. Litter box boycot: After cleaning her litter box on Tuesday, she went on strike. I assumed it was because I had to do it in front of her ( It was raining here in Montreal and I normally take everything out…) Although the litter ( Yesterdays news), hay (Timothy) and position of her litterbox have not changed, she won’t sit and poop in it. She poops around it. I cleaned it again this morning and she seemed annoyed.

3. I know she is eating more hay – particularly as she is chewing the heck out of her Oxbow Bunagalow. She also chowed down on some oxbow oat hay.

4. I have added some fresh spinach in her mix. Ripped up and mixed in with her other greens. She doesn’t seem to love it or dislike it more than any other green. In fact, the flat leaf parsley still seems to be the one she chooses first. I did a bunch of reading and figured that I would try the spinach, although I seemed to have some l ingering fear it was going to kill her.

5. After freaking out that she was in some kind of GI stasis,doing indepth examinations of her poop,  and massaging her belly ( which she didn’t love, but didn’t FORCEFULLY object), I saw binkies last night for the first time in a couple of days.

6. Yes, this week I haven’t been home as much. School, Teaching/Work and research have kept me away, so it is true that she may simply be annoyed with me for not waiting on her hand and foot.

 

And to top it all off, I am going away this weekend for a Girls Weekend ….and have now left my husband more extensive instructions than I did when our daughter was a baby about Coco’s feeding, watering, and hay intake/preferences. And feeling guilty about leaving her, as I am her primary caregiver and nose rubber.

Is this a pattern -or am I having fairly new mommy rabbit guilt?

[Sarita]

Honestly I would just keep a watch on her and make sure that she is eating and pooping for the next few days.

Everyone’s rabbits have different habits so you are the best to know if there is something wrong.

I have found that a change in seasons sometimes affects my rabbits behavior too – days longer, days shorter, days colder, days hotter, etc…

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

^^ Ditto that, I think you’re just being very careful and observant-which is very very important and good of you! But sometimes, yes they won’t feel like salad and sometimes they’ll leave some cecals around. Have fun on your girls weekend!

[Binkles]

It could very well be that she’s just got a ‘bunnitude’ right now. =P In my experience, bunnies kinda go through ‘phases,’ sometimes they’ll be really gung-ho about something, and then the next week they’re like a totally different bunny!

But yeah, I agree. There isn’t anything there that immediately suggests that something is ‘wrong’, per se. Just to keep a close eye on her, particularly her litterbox habits. Sometimes when I am keeping a close eye out on mine, I take pictures of their litterboxes in the morning and compare them at night to see much…’output’ they’ve had from day-to-day.

[Author]

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