Not eating hay and drinking water

[Alfredo's Mum]

Hi,

A while back I discussed about Alfredo needing to get incisor removal. Well it finally happened, along with his neutering. It has been a little over 48 hours and his demeanor is normal and he is more that willing to eat up all the food he can get (recovery food, watered down pellets, and chopped up greens). I'm a little worried for his digestion though.

He did try to eat hay the first day be brought him home and he was successful in eating a few strands, but since then he hasn't eaten much or any at all, I know that a result of this is drinking less water as well and I'm just a little worried that he isn't getting the Fibre he needs to digest properly. His poos look normal but definitely not producing as much as he usually does.

Any thought on how I can possibly make it easier for him to eat hay, as I can probably guess his mouth is still sore to be able to eat anything harder than watered down mush.

Thanks

 

[Apollo’s Slave]

You also could try putting the hay to his mouth / hand-feeding him to encourage hay eating. But if he doesn't eat soon, I would take him back to the vet or call for advice. I would hope that as it's been two days now, it would be easier and less painful for him to eat. Were you given pain relievers?

 

[Alfredo's Mum]

Yes we were given both meloxicam which is every 24 hours and tramadol every 12. I've been trying to hand feed him and he wants to take it but he's having a hard time trying to navigate how to pick it up. He does eat hay but it's usually at night and in very small amounts unfortunately I was unable to pick up hay from my usual hay supplier and had to get hay locally, but they hay I got seems to be a lot harder that what we usually buy. The image attached is the hay I recently bought and ita a lot more stick like and less soft than the one I originally buy

But yes will give the vet a call right now to see what we can do to get him to eat hay

 

[JBun]

Maybe some plain grass hay pellets. They will sometimes have larger livestock bags of them at farm stores, or smaller bags for pets are available online. Then they could be made into a mush like you're doing with his regular food pellets. Though until you're able to get some, I would increase the amount of recovery food and chopped greens that you're feeding, to help make up for the lack of hay eating and help increase fluid intake.

Something like this:
timothy hay pellets

Eventually he may get the hang of eating hay again. He may just not know right now, how to adjust to the lack of incisors to help with that.

 

[Alfredo's Mum]

Thank you that is very reassuring. Just waiting back to hear from the vet on the next steps we should take. But had a question. So he is eating a lot of the recovery food (sherwood), like a lot he loves the stuff, would it be wise trying the sherwood -free choice timothy (blue package)- right now I have him on just the regular sherwood -adult rabbit timothy (green package)-

 

[Alfredo's Mum]

Malso would it be worth while trying a softer cut of timothy hay like 3rd cut?

 

[JBun]

Sure. The free choice timothy is pretty much made for these types of things. Where a rabbit has some sort of issue that makes it so they can't or won't eat long strand hay. Maybe just increase the recovery feeding until you get a bag of the free choice timothy food in.

 

[JBun]

If you can get a third cut, it might be worth trying. Though do be aware that sometimes third cut can be too rich of a hay, resulting in it causing mushy and/or uneaten cecals for some rabbits.

 

[Futurebunmom]

If he isn’t drink very much water if I were you I’d do leafy greens. My bun mainly gets dandelion leaves, wheat grass and celery. If your in America and have access to a Whole Foods they sell dandelion and faddish sprouts - it’s packed full of vitamins and my bunny loves it. Sending healing prayers to your bunny.

 

[2Bunns]

Bambi didnt eat much hay until i got oxbow botanical hay. It smells like tea. She loves it, also oat hay. If ur concerned then do contact a vet but Bambi never eats hardly any hay. Dual care nuggets are great to keep the gut moving and can be easily soluble in warm water for a 15ml long neck syringe feed.