Bunny stopped eating :(

[Jordan]

The last couple days I noticed that my bunny, Gypsy, hadn't been eating as much as usual. She was on antibiotics and metacam for a digestive upset she had that caused a lot of gas. When I woke up this morning I noticed that she hadn't eaten anything at all throughout the night. I took her to the vet right away this morning. She said that her bloating had gone down significantly and that I could stop giving her the medicine for it and gave me some Critical Care to feed to her.

Now that I'm home and have actually tried to feed her the Critical Care I am having some problems. I mixed it up and tried to give it to her on a plate, like I have done with all of my rabbits who needed it in the past, but she didn't want anything to do with it. So I tried to syringe feed it to her, for some reason she seems to be more receptive to things in a syringe lol, but that didn't work either. She ran and hid. Once I caught her I wrapped her up in a towel and very, very, slowly injected some of it in her mouth. That seemed to work okay except that she wouldn't chew or swallow while I was holding her, I'd have to put her down and wait for her to swallow then pick her back up and try again. I got about 10ccs in her but the whole ordeal was so stressful for her. I hate to do that to her knowing how scared she is, but I don't know what else I can do to get her to eat...

Is there anything that I could add to it to make it a little more appealing to her? Maybe some kind of fruit juice with no sugar? The antibiotic I was giving her was cherry flavored and she would do tricks for that stuff haha. Any ideas?

 

[tonyshuman]

There are different flavors of critical care, anise (licorice) and apple/banana. They usually like apple/banana better. You could mix it up with pedialyte, which comes in apple flavor, and also contains a lot of electrolytes that will help hydrate her. Pedialyte is a lot like low-sugar fruit juice but it also has those electrolytes. I like to get the unflavored Pedialyte and syringe it directly, if you can find it, and leave a bowl of it out with a touch of fruit juice in it to make it interesting to the bunnies. The consistency may also be an issue--adding more water than the package directs and letting it soak for at least 15 min are recommended by people on here who've used it before.

I have found that my guys won't swallow when I'm syringe feeding them if they're in too vertical a position. If you could tilt her body downward while still holding her, so that she's more parallel to the floor instead of perpendicular, she may be more comfortable swallowing. You can also try to bunny burrito her and keep her close to or level with the floor, and put the syringe in her mouth that way.

I think a lot of times the stress of being held upright makes bunnies not want to swallow. If you can get them closer to horizontal, they may be more comfortable.

Now I know I'm not licensed to question your vet, but I think it would be best to make sure she's well hydrated and let the eating come on its own. Bunnies can be ok without eating for a few days, but hydration is really important to get the GI tract running correctly, especially after gas and stasis events. The probioitcs in the critical care will help, and it has a lot of electrolytes to help hydrate and fiber too, but at this point I would just keep syringing her water or pedialyte and leave the CC in a bowl where she can get at it. Eventually with enough water, she should feel well enough to start eating it on her own.

 

[Jordan]

Okay, Thank you so much
I did give her as much water out of the syringe as she would take earlier and I will stop and pick up some pedialyte and try that.

 

[tonyshuman]

That's good to hear. My guys really go nuts for the pedialyte with some fruit flavor, or with grenadine added--for some reason they love grenadine--got the tip from Haley.

 

[ra7751]

What antibiotic were youusing? Being cherry flavor, I hope it's Zithromax. And if so, it is normal to have a depressed appetite when using this drug (and many other drugs). Don't sweat it too much at this point. Hydration is much more important than food.

Randy