Kirby isn't the same...

[kirbyultra]

Kirby went through about 2 weeks of change in appetite. He wasn't eating as much and his poops were stringy withfur. We went to the vet, he really freaked out during the visit, but nothing was found and we thought it was just because he was ingesting too much of his fur from the end of his molt.

But he hasn't been the same ever since. He likes me being around and he still perks up a bit when it's mealtime. But he and I don't seem to have the relationship that we used to. He used to lie down on the ground when I was in the room so I'd pet him. He used to run towards me when I came home from work. Now he doesn't come out of his condo as much (we have a fenced off play area that he can always come out to exercise in). He kind of just hangs out in the condo and eats and sleeps and poops. He was really coming out of his shell before this. Now it seems like we're back to square one when I adopted him in Nov '08.

He freaks out at the slightest sound. When I come into his playpen he freezes for a minute and then first chance he gets, he bolts into the condo. But he is fine when I am outside the pen, petting him from over the fence.

He's a 2 year old Satin. He's wonderfully sweet. Never aggressive, always forgiving. I just don't know what happened to change his personality.

 

[Maureen Las]

It sounds like he is pooping and eating OK.
You probably already posted this but I don't remember ..when was he neutered?

 

[kirbyultra]

Yep, he's neutered. He was neutered a long time ago, when he was a littlerbunny.

He is eating and pooping just fine. He is starting to show signs of excitement towards his oxbow pellets again (He used to dive into them)... do rabbits take a long time to recover their mood after they've been a little bit sick? I don't even think I'd consider him to have been really sick. He just ate lots of his fur and pooped slowly and appetite decreased for a period of time.

 

[Maureen Las]

it does take a long time for them to get over stasis ; make sure that he has plenty of fluids ..you could flavor his water with a little apple juice or even syringe pedialyte if he will allow it

brush him alot so you get most of the excess fur.
you can give him gentle tummy massages. give simethicone if he seems gasy

make sure that he is eating plenty of hay

I really think now that he hasn't felt well.
if they are not eager for pellets to me that is sign that the issue is not resolved yet.

 

[kirbyultra]

Perhaps you're right and he was not feeling well then. He is slowly coming back to his former self. He is more excited about food than before. He eats tons and tons ofhay daily. He doesn't drink much water (always been the case) so I give him a tablespoon of pumpkin a day and I mix in an extra half tablespoon of water to give it a little more moisture. He eats that up immediately.

He still doesn't dive into his pellets from the other side of the room the way he used to, but now he is showing at least the same preference that he used to:He would be eating his salad and then when the pellets hit the dish he'd stop eating salad and eat pellets. He still won't eat them all in one sitting the way he used to, though. But I have another theory about that. While he was "sick" he cared for neither salad nor pellets and would eat them out of hunger, not out of excitement.

My theory is that he did not like his old hay. I first noticed his eating habits changed when I changed his hay and that was sort of 3/4 of the way into his molt. He used to eat this really yellow, pretty dry hay. He'd love the fuzzy timothy stems. He'd eat the hay but he wasn't crazy about it. At that time I started to work in a new batch of lush, green Oxbow timothy which had a fresher smell and was much softer (I think it's 2nd cut). He ate the stuff like he'd never eaten hay before. So my theory ties into the thought that maybe with the old hay he wasn't really eating enough and so he as hungry and ate the pellets and salad like it was his last meal every time. But now that he has an endless supply of delicious hay he's not as hungry when it's salad and pellet time. Does that make sense? All of this coincided with his molting and the furry poop. Maybe it was two situations lumped together.

I've taken care to monitor his poo condition and they have been very good looking poops if I do say so myself! :biggrin2:Big, round, and not furry.

He's coming around I think... I hope...