Adopted bun food issues

[Whit1838]

Good morning, I'm new to the forums and am a first time rabbit mom.

My boyfriend brought home a 4 year old dwarf netherland rabbit named Zeus about three weeks ago and I've become his primary care giver. I don't mind- I love this little guy and we're slowly becoming buddies.

He came to us with a diet mainly compromised of alfalfa pellets, yogurt treats, oats, and Timothy hay. I googled like a fiend and discovered most of those foods are not good for him. I slowly removed the oats and yogurt drops (as of now he doesn't get any) and replaced them with veggies but this bun is set in his ways and won't try most of his new vegetables. He picks them up, drops them out of his food tray, and goes for the pellets. As of two days ago I've removed the pellets completely due to loose/runny cecotropes.

I've ordered oat hay and orchard hay which will be here in a couple of days but he seems so hungry I feel terrible. I don't see him eating much timothy hay. Can I keep offering romaine lettuce that he isn't used to while he's having loose cecotropes?

He has an appointment with the vet later this week for a check up but I don't want him to starve until then.

Any advice would be awesome!


(Sorry for the novel)

 

[JBun]

You're right, he actually could starve himself. Rabbits have been known to stop eating when their usual food is removed, and this can potentially be very harmful to them. For now I would give the pellets back until you have a plan and are sure he will continue to eat well as you make his diet changes. Since he's not getting pellets and not eating the hay well, this will cause his digestive system to slow down from lack of adequate intake, which could result in GI stasis developing. He needs to be eating, even if it is causing mushy cecotropes for now.
http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/ileus.html

One thing that will help with the mushy poop and get him eating better, is start to gradually get him changed to a timothy based pellet like oxbow. Prior to you stopping the pellets he should have been getting a rationed amount of pellets per day and hopefully not free fed them. The usual measured amount would be about 1 oz per lb of body weight. So for a dwarf that will be about 1/4-1/2 cup per day depending on his weight, and I would split that into a morning and evening feeding. If you gradually remove a small amount(1/2-1 tsp) of his usual pellets and replace it with the new timothy pellets, then every few days decrease the old and increase the new(making sure he's eating the new pellets), he should gradually get used to the change of pellets instead of it being sudden over 2-3 weeks. Which is also better for his digestion, not to be suddenly changing pellet types.

As for the hay, for a rabbit his age he could have sharp points that have developed on his molars preventing him from being able to eat his hay very well. So you'll want the vet to do a thorough dental exam to rule out that. If his teeth are fine, then it could just be he's not used to eating hay. If so, a different variety may make a difference(like the ones you ordered). But if the oat hay has many seed heads in it, I would either remove them so he's not getting extra carbs from the oat seeds, or hold off on feeding the oat hay for now. Another thing to try to get him eating more hay is once he's switched onto the timothy pellets you can reduce the amount of pellets a little to see if it encourages him to start eating more hay.

But right now he needs to be eating or you could end up having to deal with a much more serious health problem developing. It's essential for a rabbits digestive tract to keep moving, which means they always need to be eating or they could end up getting very sick.

With your vet, if you haven't already checked to make sure they are very experienced with rabbits, I would suggest doing so or maybe looking on this list for a rabbit vet.
https://rabbit.org/vet-listings/

 

[Whit1838]

Thank you for responding! I'll get him some pellets right away and slowly start the switch.