Bunny's not eating much hay...

Rabbits Online Forum

Help Support Rabbits Online Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

animalsRbetter

Active Member
Joined
Feb 19, 2017
Messages
33
Reaction score
15
Location
NULL
Hello all,
So our Abe has been a happy healthy bunny up until two days ago, when he barely pooped and pretty much stopped eating his hay. He has since started pooping again, but hay consumption is still really, really low. He's still got an appetite, he still eats his pellets in the morning, and eats tiny bits of hay at a time, but no where near what he was eating.
He also doesn't seem as active. He's got a room to himself, but we usually let him roam the whole house when we're home, but he's had no desire to leave the room, where as normally, first thing in the morning he's hopping out to visit his cat friends!
We've reached the bottom of the bag of hay, so it's mostly just small pieces, I'm wondering if that has something to do with it? I've noticed when he does eat the hay, he goes for the long pieces.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
 
Try a new bag of hay. If he doesn't eat it well either, you're going to need a vet. Rabbits are difficult when it comes to hay, but a eating less of it can indicate an underlaying condition (like a tooth issue).
It's possible your rabbit just don't like the hay you gave him, but it clearly caused a slowing of the guts so if the hay eating doesn't pick up soon you'll have a GI stasis case in no time (or worse, a blockage).
Considering you say your rabbit's behavior is not normal, I really wouldn't wait : try the new hay bag today and if in a few hours it's not better, call your vet. Rabbits hide their symptoms very well and, often, when we begin to see signs that something is wrong, it means that it became quite urgent.
 
Thanks so much! My boyfriend wound up taking him to a vet yesterday, not our vet, unfortunately, since they couldn't see him until next week.
He had a fever of 105 (they said he was supposed to be 103 normally), they hooked him up to an IV for fluids, and found that his chin was swollen. They tried to take a sample to determine what kinds of antibiotics to give him, only blood came out (I think they were expecting some kind of puss). They ended up giving him veraflox (pradofloxacin) as an antibiotic and metacam as a painkiller and sent him home with those. He seems to be doing better today, he's back to eating more hay, drinking more regularly, and hopping around instead of staying in one place all day.
I still don't understand what would cause something like this, the vet seems to have told my boyfriend that it was because of a cold/flu of some kind. I was curious if anyone else has experienced anything like this with their bunnies? Could it have been something in his environment, and we could have caused this? I'm also a little hesitant of the medications, as this was not my normal vet (although my boyfriend said they were very nice and seemed knowledgeable), but still, any feedback from.more experienced bunny owners would be much appreciated! I'll try to attach a picture of his swollen (also shaved) chin.
 
It's good you took him then, eating less is often a sign that the rabbit is in pain so the Metacam should indeed help with getting him back to normal. Nevertheless, 'a flu' sounds like a weird diagnostic to me - generally it's what people call 'coryza' in animals and the signs are more linked to sneezing / wet nose or eyes... A swollen chin would be more characteristic of a cyst (which is clearly what the vet thought it was initially considering he tried to take a sample of pus) caused by a wound or a dental problem or an infection. When it's a lump filled with blood, it's generally not life-threatening and draining the abscess can suffice to settle the matter. It can have been caused by a minor trauma. It can be the sign of something more problematic, but there is no reason to panic yet. Considering the treatment he got, the vet he saw tried not to take any chance and to treat a possible bacterial infection.
I would keep an eye on it for now. If he eats well and that the lump recedes, it might be the end of it. But if the lump stays or that he shows sign of being in pain or anything, I would take an appointment with your regular vet to make some other exams (like taking an x-ray to check the teeth, making some blood work and thinking about removing the abscess if draining doesn't suffice).
I hope it's nothing and wish Abe a speedy recovery!
 
Abe seems to be doing much better today! Swelling has gone down significantly (he's down to just one chin instead of the two chins he had when he was all swollen, and he's grazing on his hay more frequently. He demolished his pellets for breakfast, which is normal for him. So happy to see him hopping around again!
We got the blood work back this afternoon and the vet said that it was a clear infection. There were cells from the lymph node which indicates that it was a pretty nasty infection. She also found a few odd cells, which may indicate cancer (although they didn't think so since the swelling has gone down) or that the cells were just agitated from the infection. He'll be going back to the vet this Friday for a re-check and hopefully proof that our Abe doesn't have cancer :(
Thank you SO SO much for all of your help providing some clarity during this very stressful time!!!
 
Just an update on our Abe: he's been back to the vet twice since my last reply. He went in Friday, about a week after his initial visit, and the vet was not happy with the lack of shrinkage in the growth. He was starting to act more normal: eating more frequently almost immediately after pain meds were administered and wanting to come out of his room to hop around with the cats. So they asked how comfortable we would be administering shots for him over the weekend. After they showed me how to do it, I was relatively ok with it, as long as it would make our bunny better. I was sent home with two more penicillin shots as well as another antibiotic (matronidazole), and was told to continue all medications through the weekend and to make an appointment for Monday, when hopefully the swelling would be gone, or we would have to consider surgery.

Through the weekend, his hay consumption went up, as well as water, although they still are not nearly what they were before he got sick. The swelling seemed to go down a little, and the growth seemed to be much softer. However, I was convinced we were going to have to do little bunny surgery since the vet seemed like she was expecting it to be gone by Sunday night.

Much to my surprise, the vet was very pleased with the progress Monday. She gave me 7 more penicillin shots to take this week, and told me to continue all of the oral medications until they are gone. Hopefully it will be gone by next week, he'll be back to the vet next Monday!

The vet stated that a lot of the issues we're still having with him (below average hay and water consumption and not using the litter box consistently) are normal behaviors while Abe's still in recovery, and he should go back to his normal habits when he no longer has to take medications.

Has anyone else had an experience similar to this?
 
The only experience I ever had was with one of my first two buns, my princess Chocolat. She was maybe 4-5months old when we had a major scare with her. She had some sort of infection, treated for upper respiratory. There were roughly two hours between my dad checked on her and Caramel, and when I checked on them when I came home. That was enough for her to go from normal, happy bun to a bun with blood covering her nose and face like something ruptured. I barely slept that night, and in the morning I called around until I got the number for the exotics vet I had recommended to me when I first got her and Caramel.

We rushed her 30-45mins to that vet... She was there for three days before being discharged. We had her on the CritCare to ensure she was eating, and several medications. One of them was metacam, and I forget what the others were. When she was at the vet, we also found out she was about to have baby buns.. So I'm not sure if her having a litter had anything to do with it or not... But after all the meds, it seemed like her bladder was never really the same. She was not accident prone outside her cage, but after the course of all the meds she was on.... She was definitely accident prone. She did well to train to signal us when she would have to go to the bathroom. She's scratch at your thigh and pull on your shirt to let you know she had to go, but if you missed the signal while she was out, she was leaving a puddle.

I also had a rabbit I took home from work because she had been mauled by another, substantially larger rabbit. (This lil one was only no more than 9wks old compared to the 7month old.) When she healed up and went back to the store, she went back with the name 'Slipper,' and the family that brought her home kept the name. She had a bladder issue while on her meds, which I cautioned the new owners about. Either her bathroom habits would be perfectly fine, or she could be prone to accidents here and there... But it would take time because she hadn't been off the meds too long.

So I think medicated bunnies do struggle with litter box habits. Slipper did pretty well compared to Chocolat. I hadn't left working at the store yet when the mother from family that bought Slipper came in raving about how amazing she was doing. It was a relief. She was going on about how they were setting money to the side to get her spayed, but she wasn't doing too bad with the litter training.

Luke did well with litter box usage after having his mass removed and getting neutered at the same time. He was loopy when I brought him home, but he was phenomenal with taking right to using his litter set up (because he had three sets of sutures, he was using an empty Friskies box with a grocery bag as a liner with his litter until he recovered more).

I think it may vary from bunny to bunny. I do think some breeds are tougher than others, but it ultimately varies case by case.

But I wouldn't stress too much over whether or not whatever the cause of it was your fault. Sometimes we can do everything right and something still happens. He could have simply bumped his chin, or he could have even scratched it. Weird things happen; we only have control over so much.

Though it is nice to know Abe is recovering and the situation appears to be improving over time. Keep us all posted~~
 

Latest posts

Back
Top