GI stasis - only eating vegetables?

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uhohxitsnami

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My bun has been diagnosed with GI stasis after taking her to the vet since I noticed she was being very lethargic and wasn’t pooping. Ever since, she’s been given several medications and critical care. She wasn’t eating for a little while at all, but I finally got her to eat some vegetables. Is it a problem if she only wants to eat vegetables? Hay or pellets don’t appetize her at all, and she only eats an occasional straw of hay or two and that’s it.

Should I keep feeding her vegetables to keep encouraging her gut to move? Am I hurting her more if she’s only eating vegetables? Any help or tips regarding this, or GI stasis in general, is appreciated.

Thank you!
 
I think vegetables are better than nothing, but maybe be a bit mindful of giving too much of the specific vegetables that rabbits shouldn't be eating a lot of.
The most important thing is to keep feeding the critical care until her diet and poop is back to normal and she's eating plenty of hay and drinking water regularly. If she's not eating hay and only eating soft veggies for a while, it might be teeth related problems? If so, I'd take her to the vet just to check.

Hope she recovers soon!
 
Worst thing is if she doesn't eat anything.

There is some other, pretty safe stuff to feed on such occasions, like leaves of apple, blackberry, raspberry, also narrowleaf plantain is easily digestible, yarrow too as far as I know. That stuff has more fiber than vegetables and can help to get things moving.
 
If vegetables is all shes willing to eat I would offer plenty of lettuce but make sure it is nice and wet so she can get hydrated too. I would say that one of the most important things to do is massage her stomach as much as she will tolerate this will help things get moving. Good luck with everything.
 
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I think vegetables are better than nothing, but maybe be a bit mindful of giving too much of the specific vegetables that rabbits shouldn't be eating a lot of.
The most important thing is to keep feeding the critical care until her diet and poop is back to normal and she's eating plenty of hay and drinking water regularly. If she's not eating hay and only eating soft veggies for a while, it might be teeth related problems? If so, I'd take her to the vet just to check.

Hope she recovers soon!

Thank you! She has been eating kale and lettuce, with some parsley... mostly lettuce. I got her to take a couple bites of carrot and apple too, and some pepper as well. I’m giving her another round of Critical Care soon and hoping it will help. It’s frustrating because I can really tell she hates the syringe and she kicks a lot [emoji20]
 
Worst thing is if she doesn't eat anything.

There is some other, pretty safe stuff to feed on such occasions, like leaves of apple, blackberry, raspberry, also narrowleaf plantain is easily digestible, yarrow too as far as I know. That stuff has more fiber than vegetables and can help to get things moving.

Thanks so much! I saw this and gave her a couple slices of apple and she ate them up. It was extra juicy too, so I was glad to know she is getting some water from it.
 
If vegetables is all shes willing to eat I would offer plenty of lettuce but make sure it is nice and wet so she can get hydrated too. I would say that one of the most important things to do is massage her stomach as much as she will tolerate this will help things get moving. Good luck with everything.

I’ll massage her again very soon (although she hates when I do it, so I can’t do it nearly as much as I would like), but after seeing this I did wet the lettuce to prevent her from being dehydrated and I’ll do that from now on. Thank you!
 
Thanks so much! I saw this and gave her a couple slices of apple and she ate them up. It was extra juicy too, so I was glad to know she is getting some water from it.


Ah, I literally meant leaves of apple trees (leaves of roses are great too and they stay on the bushes long into the winter). Not the fruits. Although a little normally does no harm sugar is not the best thing when digestion is slow anyway.

One of my does didn't let me touch her belly, so I put her on my lab and luffed (?expression?)/shook her whole, that she accepted.
 
Ah, got it! I haven’t given her anything sugary besides the apple, so I think it’s probably okay. I was relieved she got some fluids in her at least.

An update that she has eaten a decent amount of hay and her droppings aren’t a pudding consistency, but they are still soft. Her pellets came out in one lump, kind of clumped together and dark and a little soft, but they were trying to be round shaped at least.

She’s eaten hay, apple, kale, lettuce, and some of her pellet food as well. I’ve read on some other forms to not let rabbits have their pellet food and do a restriction on hay only if can be during GI stasis? I let her eat it, because I was happy she was eating something other than vegetables and might help her harden up her poops.
 
GI Stasis is an acute, life threatening situation. Most important thing is to get them eating, the guts moving again, that means force feeding and things like motility and anti gas (Simethicone) drugs. And, besides the usual food, offering yummy, but safe stuff, but everything they eat is an improvement.

That hay only is more of something people do when there is soft stool, diarrhia, excess cecotrops etc. Since mine don't eat hay most of the year (I feed fresh forage) I don't have experience with that.
 

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and do a restriction on hay only if can be during GI stasis? I let her eat it, because I was happy she was eating something other than vegetables and might help her harden up her poops.

There is never a time to restrict hay. Hay is the one thing they should always have plenty of -- most especially when there is a GI problem. Hay is exactly the thing she needs and eating that can get the gut moving again and the tummy back to normal.

Be sure she has water in a bowl since eating hay often causes them to drink as well.
 
There is never a time to restrict hay. Hay is the one thing they should always have plenty of -- most especially when there is a GI problem. Hay is exactly the thing she needs and eating that can get the gut moving again and the tummy back to normal.

Be sure she has water in a bowl since eating hay often causes them to drink as well.

Sorry! I meant restrict everything except unlimited hay. I’m happy to report her droppings are still fewer, but now round again and not all mushed together either! Much progress.

I still am giving her some critical care, even though she’s eating now more too. The critical care is watered down though, she hasn’t taken an actual drink since this all started happening! I do wet her vegetables though, and like I said, the critical care has more water in it too, so I know she has at least some fluids on her system. Not sure if I should stop giving her more critical care.

A funny thing is whenever I go to massage her belly, she runs away and immediately starts eating hay! She does thing every time, I think I accidentally conditioned her to eat hay whenever I go to run her tummy because when she does that, I leave it alone! Even my boyfriend noticed it.

So things seem better. The vet told me to finish her antibiotics (Enrofloxacin and Metronidazole) after a week, so we still have a few days to go on that. Did any of you guys finish through a whole cycle like if antibiotics instructed as so? Or did you stop whenever their droppings returned to normal? She told me to stop giving cisapride once her droppings are normal, which I think they are mostly, but not quite 100%. One more dose should do it. Today is her last day of Meloxicam (pain killer) too, as she said don’t give her anymore than 3 day’s worth of dosage, and if needed, half the dosage afterwards. I think she might be able to just be done with it after her final dose of that today though.

Sorry this got long! Thanks all. [emoji3590]
 
Glad to hear she's doing better. It's always advised to continue all antibiotics through to the end --even if symptoms get better. They are still working and cutting them short can cause a relapse.

Love the unexpected trick you found to get her to eat hay. I'd continue to do that to coax her to eat more hay. :)
 

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