Pellets and Gut Stasis.

Hi!
I posted a while ago when my bunny Tundra was having chronic gut stasis which was on and off for weeks. It was one of the worst times of my life as we just didn't know if we could find the source of the problem and get Tundra well again. We knew it wasn't from lack of exercise as he got hours to run round a large garden and all the plants were bunny safe. This left us with his diet. After lots of trial and error, we found that under no circumstance must he be allowed any dried food - if anything the worst bout of all was when he had some of the burgess pellets. Before we discovered it was the food, the vets were talking about X-rays and so on and hadn't once suggested complete elimination of all pellets.
I know that the reason for gut stasis may vary in rabbits but just wanted to let others know how we sorted it and it could be worth a go. Tundra has lost weight as there are no pellets whatsoever but his weight did stabilise and he seems much happier and healthier now.

I encountered a similar problem with one of my rabbits. He was new and not used to people, and the stress of being in a new home put him into stasis. I nursed him back to health after a couple weeks, but then once he was eating again on his own he developed stasis again. Recovered again, and then started getting sick again. I discovered it was the pellets causing him to go into stasis repeatedly. After putting him on a hay and select leafy veggie diet, he never had stasis again. I did very very slowly try to add different types of pellets back into his diet, and every time he started acting like his belly was feeling uncomfortable, but because I took it really slow and only started him off on just a few pellets, it wasn't enough to cause him to go into stasis. All I could figure that all the different types of pellets had in common, was carbohydrates. So I figured that was what caused the digestive upset. For the 2 years he was with me before his death(not from diet or stasis) he never did experience stasis again, and that was due to the very strict diet he was on. Sometimes with these digestive issues, it's just a process of eliminating things in the diet to see if something they are eating is the cause.

I'm a bit surprised it didn't occur to your vet to suggest at least temporarily removing pellets, as they are so often such a common cause of digestive issues in rabbits. I'm glad you were able to figure it out and that your bun is doing well now.

This is interesting! I wonder if this is the cause behind my Barley's repeated bouts of GI Stasis. He's terribly picky about his greens though, and about all he'll eat is pea shoots, pea pods, kale, spinach (occasionally) and romaine lettuce. I've tried just about every vegetable available and those are the only ones he'll eat. He's not a big hay eater either and I've tried all kinds. What vegs will/would your rabbit eat, JBun and Lizzy? Barley has been eating Kaytee brand pellets. Tried to switch him over to Oxbow but he wouldn't touch them. He actually could pick around them in the bowl when I mixed them.

Thanks for the reply Jbun - it sounds so similar to Tundra. I'm surprised now myself that the vets didn't give much in the way of advice and dangers of dried food.

I'm sorry BarleyNHops that you're going through it too. Tundra now only eats 'regular' hay, Timothy hay, camomile hay (as its good to ease digesting apparently) parsley, coriander and a little piece of apple. I know it doesn't sound very much or is very exciting but thankfully he eats so much hay now which is always good. I hope you find something nice for him!

My Joey often got GI stasis (and ended up fatally bloating during his last episode) and even though he only ever got two eggcup-sized scoops of pellets a day on top of his unlimited timothy hay, I have vowed to eliminate them from any future rabbits' diets. It just doesn't seem worth the risk to me after reading about the harm pellets can do.

Lizzy, I had Barley put to sleep Wednesday evening after trying to feed him and as he held the food in his mouth without swallowing, I was overcome with how wrong it all was and how miserable he was and the anxiety of it all was getting to me as well. I have a thread in the Health thread called Mysterious Ailment that explains the situation.

I see SO MANY rabbits with GI stasis... but NEVER have I seen one that was NOT eating pellets (or other junk food). I really don't see everyone's weird attachment to this obvious archaic food source. Rabbits do great on greens and hays. Nothing else at all is necessary. Yet when I see comments such as 'temporarily remove the pellets' I wonder WHY TEMPORARY?: It is a long standing frustration of mine that I guess I am never going to get my head around. Does keep me busy, though. Not sure what I would see rabbits for in my practice if they would just stop being fed pellets... it's at least the cause of 90% of the problems I see rabbits for (from dental disease, to ocular problems, to ear infections to obesity, to, of course, GI stasis).