Spoiled Bunny

I officially have a spoiled bunny, he has been drinking bottled water since he started drinking water. He will only drink bottled water from a certain water dish that really doesnt hold enough water for him all day while I am at work. Filtered water just doesn't cut it and heaven forbid he drags a piece of hay into it or kicks a pellet of bedding in there. He wont drink it! He has gobs of Timothy hay in his cage which he is nosing around and will not eat until I put fresh handfuls of hay in. He's a BRAT!

I put a water bottle in his cage if for some reason he refuses to drink from his bowl or happens to run out of water but he doesn't seem interested in checking it out. Any suggestions how I can get him to try? He weaned off one of his Critical Care feeding a yesterday. I am a little concerned he lost 8 grams today, not sure what my vet had in mind to replace the Critical Care with. I started slowly adding Oxbow Timothy pellets back into his diet but I have to go extremely slow so basically he eats only Timothy and orchard grass hay. He is feeling a little thin to me today. (For those who don't know Zero's background he doesn't tolerate alfalfa well at all) Zero is 8 weeks old if anyone has any non-pellet/ alfalfa diet suggestions it would be greatly appreciated.

If it's hot by you and you give Zero ice bottles you can put the ice bottle under his drinking bottle, a rabbit of mine learned how to drink out of a bottle like that, he originally just started licking the melting water on the ice bottle but then he started drinking from his water bottle. It may not work but just a suggestion lol.

That's a good idea but there wouldn't be much condensation in the house. We have AC and I live in Phoenix so it is kind of dry for now. Thank you for the suggestion. Perhaps if I just moved his drinking bowl near the bottle it would work the same way? My sister said to just take his drinking bowl out, no way am I doing that!

Haha, spoiled little Zero It's actually somewhat common for rabbits to get used to the taste of a certain kind of water, and to not drink if suddenly switched. You can gradually get him used to a different water by gradually transitioning him over. Just add a little of the new water to his usual water, and slowly increase the amount each day. And NO, don't take his water dish away. With his digestive problems, the last thing you want is him not drinking enough water. Try finding a larger dish similar to the one he has, or putting an extra dish out next to his usual one. You could try putting a bit of his critical care or simethicone(if he likes it) on the end of the water nozzle, to see if that will interest him in licking it. But good luck. I got a baby bunny that was weaned too early from it's mom, and never learned how to eat pellets or drink water. I had to put her with one of my big rabbits just to help her learn how to drink water from a dish. She never did learn how to drink from a bottle.

I'm a little concerned about him being weaned off his critical care too. My suggestion would be to continue to feed it to him, if you are certain that it doesn't cause any of the bloating or GI upset that he has experienced. He has to be getting nutrients from somewhere. He can't get the proper balance of nutrients from his hay, so he either needs pellets, critical care, or veggies. Since he isn't getting enough pellets yet, it would be better to wait to wean him off the critical care when he is eating more pellets without any problems. Then as you are increasing the amount of pellets, you can slowly decrease the amount of critcal care.

Are you buying the critical care from your vet, or have you found somewhere online to get it? It's much cheaper to buy online, and to buy the larger bags. The thing that I don't understand is why he's having a hard time going on the pellets. The ingredients of the pellets and critical care, are almost identical. About the only difference is that the pellets have collodial silica and mineral oil in them, and they don't have the papaya, pineapple, and oats that the critical care has.

Jbun, have you ever heard of seed heads in the grass hay causing GI/bloat issues? Does Oxbow hay have seedheads in it? Today is also supposed to be his last day of Simethicone but I am waiting until tomorrow to stop that. I will be home all weekend to rabbit watch. I really don't have a problem with feeding him Critical Care indefinitely if he needs it. Thank you again

We have one that doesn't do well with alfalfa pellets so we have to give her a different brand--Kayte Essentials and soak the pellets to soften them--dental issue--but have made the switch from critical care to pellets just fine. I thought for a while it was going to be that "last trip" to the vet, but she's come back pretty well. Of course, I'm at the opposite end of the spectrum as she's 14 years old. Don't know why, but we've had some really long lived bunnies and our zebra finch passed at 12 and they are only supposed to make it to 4 or 5.

I believe the culprit is the seed heads in his hay and not the pellets after all. I am still very leary of trying alfalfa again but I had my roommate feed him lunch the other day and he didn't pick the seed heads out. My bunny's belly definitely appeared more round when I got home. Has anyone else had this experience? It seems that it might be common as Oxbow's website points out that their hay "contains limited seed heads."

I've heard of some buns having problems with the grain heads in oat hay because of the added carbs, but I haven't heard of timothy or other grass hays causing problems, but it is possible that it could be. The only way to know for sure would be to pick them out every day, and see how he does. If he's fine after that then you know that he is sensitive to them. If he is still having some bloating even without the seed heads, then you know that something else may be causing the problem. With these sensitive bunnies, it's just a process of elimination, to figure out what thing or things, are causing the problem.

I did notice a difference when I started picking the seeds out. I got a new brand of Timothy hay (I was feeding Katee). Vitakraft seems to be much higher quality and has less seed heads. I was going to get Oxbow but $13.00 for a small bag of hay is ridiculous. Vitakraft is all natural and not sprayed with pesticides or preservatives.

I also got him a super cute 16oz ceramic lettuce bowl from Petsmart if he drinks all of that in a day I would think he has a problem. He has the carrot for his hay and I saw today they had a little radish. Kind of surprised myself I didn't buy the radish too just because.