GI Stasis Question

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TinysMom

TinysMom

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, Texas, USA
I've dealt with GI statis a few times but never had a situation quite like this one...normally the rabbits will at least eat something if I syringe it into them...

Pow Wow is about 3 pounds....and she's not been eating for 2 days now. I'm trying to syringe stuff into her and I noticed this morning that her gut was making noises like it was trying to start working (rumbly tummy, etc). She had about 10-12 cc of fluids and pumpkin and stuff when that happened.

Since then, I've been trying to do 10-12 cc of all her various meds/fluids/food every 3 hours or so. Is that too much? Too little?

I give her simethicone, about 5 cc of fluids w/ electrolytes in them and then about 5-6 cc of pumpkin/baby food mixture along with a bit of critical care mixed in.

She acts like she COULD take more but I've been worried about how much she can handle at one time...

HELP?

Peg
 
Are you giving her critical care or something else?

What meds is she on? Anything for mobility? Pain meds? Knowing that could help me (or others) answer.
 
Have you given her a probiotic too?

I'm no expert on rabbits and I know they are entirely different animals to rabbits but guinea pigs need 6g dry feed and 10 to 40mls water (depending on humidity) per 100 grammes of body weight.

So roughly converted for a 3lb pig would be 13g dry feed and around 25 mls water 6 times a day. Most wont takeas much as this.


What is the pumpkin/baby food used for? Is it a appetite booster?

Again I'm no expert but it does'nt sound like you are giving her enough to me. From what I've seen my rabbit eats more than my pigs, he definately poops more.

I hope your bunny gets well soon.


Sorry, I can't be of any real help but it's the best advice I can offer.








 
Sorry, I meant "motility" not "mobility."

The pumpkin is a laxative...she should be on reglan for motility and something for pain. You should be doing gentle belly massages 3 times a day, which will help get things moving. Allowing her ample exercise time is another must...it helps with getting everything moving again, too.

Giving a little food several times a day (4 or more) will work better than one or two large feedings. The gut will have time to process each little bit instead of having a huge amount just sitting in her stomach.
 
I don't understand why you would need to use a laxative, would'nt that cause more problems?

Metacam would help would'nt it? Along with the simeticone and stomach massagers.
 
Peg, as far as fluids are concerned, I wouldnt worry about overdoing it. Give her what she will take. With regards to the food, heres the link for Oxbows recommended dosage of critical care:

http://www.oxbowhay.com/download?id=10807&nocache=1

I would use that as a sort of guide as to how much food she should be getting. If shes 3 lbs and you've been feeding every 3 hours (minus when youre sleeping).. that would be about 5-6 times a day, right? Then you would feed about 12-13 ml at each feeding.

I hope Pow Wow is well soon.
 
Wow - lots of stuff here now that I can check back in. Ok - let me share what I'm doing.

First of all, I've dealt with stasis before. However, I've been fortunate in the fact that normally the rabbit will willingly (mostly) take from a syringe and then turn away their head when they are "full" enough...so I know to stop. In this case - she continually turns away her head (even though she seems to like the food). She just doesn't want to work with a syringe.

Ok - I realized she was going into stasis Friday afternoon about 6 pm I think. We have no vets that are open on weekends for about 150 miles and I don't know any of the vets in San Antonio. Since I've dealt with stasis before...I wasn't overly worried (and I'm still not overly worried to be honest with you as I have dealt with this before - its just "how much" is bugging me..).

So here is what I'm doing for her...

I start out with a light tummy massage. I then give her about 1 cc of simethicone. Next I do 3-4 cc of water. The water has electrolytes added to it (apple flavored powder from the feed store). There is also some probiotic in the water. My next step is to either give her 1 cc of nutrical OR 3-4 cc of of pumpkin/baby food. I do the mixture of pumpkin/baby food because the baby food is a bit sweeter and makes the pumpkin easier to syringe. She likes the taste - just not enough to eat it on her own if I put a bowl in her cage. Then I do the other step...like if I do nutrical first...I do pumpkin next...if I do pumpkin first...I do nutrical next. I'm using the pumpkin since I know it has fiber in it.

I finally finish up with 1-2 cc of fluid again.

Now - about the time I hit 10 cc or 12 cc ... she will make a funny sound - like she's talking to me. It's almost like she says "oof" or "oomph" or something. Then she really wants out of her bunny burrito towel.

I usually hold her and pet her a bit and while I'm doing that - I can feel her stomach or intestines or whatever gurgling as if it is processing the food. I'm not sure if that is why she's oofing or what. But she usually will snuggle into my arm a bit if I'm not feeding her and try to sleep.

Part of me wanted to give her more because of the fact that I can hear her stomach processing the food - but part of me said, "She's trying to say 'enough' and I need to listen to her instead of pushing..".

She is alert (other than napping in my arms) and she will sometimes drink a bit (not much) from her water bottle. I'm about to put some of Barbi Brown's hay in there w/ her (its sort of a gourmet type hay) and spritz it with some diluted peppermint tea. I'm also going to put a bit of diluted peppermint tea in there with her too...to see if she'll drink more that way. When I tried to put a little crock of apple-flavored electrolyte water in there - she got mad and tipped the crock over.

I can tell she's lost a tiny bit of weight but if you weren't used to holding her - you wouldn't know she'd lost weight yet.

I have given her some baby aspirin (in water) but I'm really careful on that as I don't want to upset her stomach. If I give her aspirin for pain....I give her simethicone first and then the aspirin. The aspirin does seem to help her relax...and she doesn't get a full aspirin...just a bit.

One thing I didn't think to mention is that earlier this week I realized she had ear mites and I treated her with some ivomectin. She's had ivomectin before and never had a reaction to it...but I'm wondering if somehow that made her a bit sluggish and that slowed down her gut?

I'm guessing since I'm feeding her about 6 times per day she's getting between 60 and 75 cc of fluids and or the pumpkin/baby food (which also has fluids mixed into it). She may be nibbling on her food a bit but not much.

I hope you understand when I say I'm not overly worried - it isn't that I'm not concerned. But I'm not sitting here freaking out over this as I've treated several animals for stasis and they've pulled through fine. So I'm concerned and watching her and giving her tummy rubs and stuff. Its just - where the others were more cooperative and therefore helped me know when to stop...she doesn't let me know like others do - so I was wondering if I should push a bit more (since her stomach is obviously gurgling and processing the food) or if I should stop and let her stomach work.

Peg
 
If she's not severely underweight, I wouldn't be giving her nutrical. Nutrical should be used as a last option when an animal won't eat anything...I use it very sparingly.

The CC has the fiber that a sick bunny needs, which will also help with digestion a lot. It also has probiotic in it, although not much. Reglan speeds up the contraction time of the cecum, which helps the gas to work its way out. That's why the massages are critical, as well...it helps gently push the gas out that the bunny's normal digestion couldn't do.

I can only think that the pumpkin mixture isn't doing a whole lot of good, either. You should really try to get a mix of bunny pellets and other fiber into her. If you don't have any CC or she won't take that, and have a food processer or a blender, put pellets and hayinto it, and add that into the mixture of baby food. I would cut back on the pumpkin; it's working to speed her gut up, which is good, but I can't see it actually helping at this point, especially if the gas isn't being relieved on its own. It's just making things try to speed up when it can't, which could be putting her into more pain than good.

I'd also recommend investing in a stethoscope because you can really hear the sounds better and can listen to each area of the bunny's tummy.
 
We usually mush up the pellets and add the critical care into it. I have some bunnies that will eat off a teaspoon but not take a syringe.

It took us 2 weeks to get Boo eating on her own instead of getting a syringe. I put in a few of her favourite treats and counted out like 50 pellets to put in her bowl to see if she had eaten overnight. I finally got her back with carrot, but i also had to bring her back down stairs. ( don't ask i think she was depressed)

I think you are doing the right thing little and often is best.

I have also noticed and i'm sure you have too that any poos they do they eat so it can be quite hard to tell if they are pooing.

Can you get one of the little plastic drink dowls that you can attach to the cage that way she can't spill it.

Hope she gets better soon
 
I agree with Chin, that's a lot of Nutri-cal. She only really needs it as a bit of a booster, not a full supplement, and 1 cc is a lot. I thought the standard was about a half-inch ribbon out of the tube, and Pow-Pow's pretty small.

I'll only add to the above (excellent care, excellent feedback) that you should soak the Critical Care thoroughly before giving it so her to make sure it's absobed all the water it's going to.

How is she doing?



sas
 
I make a supplement for small animals that is intended to stimulate appetite, and it has worked extremely well with my chinchillas as well as Georgie. If you'll pay shipping, I'll send you some for free. I can pretty much guarantee that it's going to help.
 
Heh heh, if you can make stuff like that we will all want it.

There is nothing worse than when your bunny decides to stop eating.
 
I would buy some. One of my bunnies went in a sulk and didn't eat right for 3 weeks. I knew there was nothing really bad wrong with him cause he was acting fine and not sore and his tummy was soft. He just wouldn't eat. I think he went in a huff after we had to take him to the vet. he didn't like getting a check so it was probably stress but i swear he was sulking.

Something to stimulate his appetite would have been great. I can't get simethicone over here either do you know what can be used instead

(sorry Peg didn't mean to take over your post)
 
Good morning - sorry to take so long to give an update...I'm just running slow today.

First - an explanation - I was giving the pumpkin for fiber and the nutrical because I had been told it would boost her appetite. Also while the syring was 1 cc...she probably would only get .75 cc because she would spit some back out. 1 cc sounds like a lot but when you measure it out - I don't think it is as much as is frequently recommended.

Anyway - today I mixed her up some critical care (I did cheat and add about 1 cc of baby food for the flavor since she's used to that) and I also put the electrolytes in her water again.

The critical care wasn't a big hit - but it was definitely prefered over the pumpkin. I don't know why I didn't think of critical care before - I so often reach for pumpkin 'cause of the fiber in it....and usually have great results..so maybe that is why.

She took about 5 or 6 cc of the critical care before she really started fussing at me...and she took about 4 or 5 cc of the water w/ electrolytes in it. She doesn't appear to have touched the hay much...but I think she ate a few pellets as they looked disturbed.

Afterwards, I held her in my arms for about 30 minutes and rubbed her ears and stuff. Normally, she'd fight me and try to get away - but she settled in and snuggled into me almost. She would give me tooth purrs and then open her eyes and look at me and be like, "Oh shoot...I'm supposed to be mad at you" and stop giving the purrs. I'd rub her ears again and the tooth purrs would start up...and a minute or two later she'd look at me again - once she even sort of sighed - and then stopped with the tooth purrs.

Finally though, she just gave in and gave me tooth purrs and slept in my arms. (Now you can understand why I'm so late getting back on here to post - I was cuddling my girl).

I'm going to clean up an area in front of the fireplace today and set her up an exercise pen out here so she is around us and can see and hear the activity around here.

Also - before I left the room - I noticed she went to her water bottle and drank a bit - not a lot - but the bottle did go down a small amount while I was watching her...

Oh - and when I went in today to feed her - she was sitting up and waiting for me.

Still no poops yet...but I think we're on the way. She's sitting much more comfortably and doesn't seem to be in any pain from gas and her stomach feels better to the touch too.

I thought I'd also share a link to this article in case anyone else wants to read it..

http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/ileus.html

When I read that one rabbit was under treatment for 14 days before they had poops and they were ok...that really made me feel much better. Usually, I start seeing poops by now.


Peg
 
Good! I'm glad she's improving!!

I've always had really good success with mixing the orange pedialyte and water together in a 1/2 and 1/2 mix. I think I know what electrolyte solution you're talking about, and that was never a big hit here.

If you hang a water bottle on his cage with an apple juice/water mix (make sure it's all natural, non-sweetened juice), as well as his regular water bottle, he will start drinking a lot and will help get his appetite up too.
 
Short update....

She peed twice in the last 90 minutes or so (I moved her out to the living room in a big pen) AND she's eating cilantro like she is afraid its going out of style and she may never have it again...

So we're off to to run errands - one of which is getting her some more cilantro (this is about 2-3 days old) and some parsley and maybe some mint...stuff like that...

Peg
 
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