Syringe feeding

[Sorayya]

Peyton stopped eating this morning, so we went to the vet.

He’s on 2 meds and critical care.

Any tips on syringe feeding?

[caudex]

If you can get it to taste good, volunteer lapping off a syringe is way nicer than force feeding. You could try some low sugar apple juice. Suck up the dose and put it in a little container, add the sweetener, then suck it all up and down a few times to mix. (A shot glass or a table spoon works pretty well for this.)

[Sorayya]

I got him in a towel to give him his critical care and meds but could not get them in. He fought me and moved his head, refused the syringe.

I mixed his meds in with his critical care and am just praying that he eats it from a dish tonight.

If he doesn’t, it’ll be the vet first thing in the morning.

Any advice?

[Bam]

I hope he’s doing better now. That he fought his meds is actually a good sign, even if it’s inconvenient for you.

It is a bit tricky to syringe-feed a bunny, and if you can be two or even three people, it’s much easier. One person holds the bun in his/her lap, sitting up (never put a bun on its back for for feeding), one peron stabilizes the head and inserts the syringe in the gap between the front teeth and the inner teeth. Then push the plunger slowly, giving the bun a chance to swallow each little “mouthful”. The person holding the bun or a third person can cover the bun’s eyes with his/her hand, because that calms a bunny down.

If you can’t get anyone to help you, you need to put the bun in a towel burrito so it can’t box and scratch you.

You can mix Critical Care with sth yummy, like plain canned pumpkin (not pie-filling) or baby fruit or berry purée or mashed banana. Many buns will find this yummy enough to eat from a plate or a spoon, but a bun who is too out of it will need to be syringe-fed.

The only thing that makes you better at syringe-feeding a bun is practice. I of course hope you won’t have to do a lot of practizing.

[jerseygirl]

Maybe this video will help?
https://youtu.be/QW0Taz0MFWE

Sometimes you can get them to swallow the food by pushing tip of syringe against “corner” of their upper and lower lips. Around on the side of face.

{{{Peyton}}}

[Sorayya]

His poops were normal tonight! He is eating lots of greens, his pellets and some hay.

[flemishwhite]

Syringe feeding?  There is an option for feeding bunnies medicine.  For us, we feed our bunnies..now two Flemish girls and our previous rabbit, Bunny,  They all have received a slice of banana every morning.  They like the banana to have some green on the skin..they all like their bananas a little bit tart.  For Bunny, we take their expected banana slice and cut a little conical opening in one end of the slice.  Into the conical opening, we deposit 1 1/2 ml of Metacame.  Bunny would lick up the Metacam before eating her banana slice!  The Metacam had a cherry taste to it if I remember correctly.  In her older age, Bunny had another medication to take. She would not take the medication in a banana slice like the Metacam.  We would put he up on our dining room table,my wife would hold her, and I would sit on the floor.  I’d place the syringe in her mouth between her front incisors and her back molars. The medication had a sweet taste to it.  I”d slowly inject the medication into her mouth and she would drink it.  After this procedure, holding her and forcing her to drink, she wasn’t upset!!!  We would pick her up from the dining room table and place her back on the floor. She’d just typically hop to lay under our living room dining room table and lay down! 

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