Not eating - very worried

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ec

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Nibbles was fine last night and this a.m., but hasn't touched her greens (fed around 1:30 pm), and hasn't pooped for a couple of hours. I've never seen her do this before - she's always racing over to the food bowl whenever I feed her. (She gets greens2x/day, Oxbow pellets - Bunny Basics/T - once a day, a little over 1/4cup.)

She's usually pretty chilled in the afternoon, and is lounging right now.

I offered her a bit of banana a half hour ago, and she really wasn't interested. This scares me - but I'm also concerned that she is picking up *my* panic and is reacting to it. (She's been hiding, but no more so than normal during a typical afternoon.)

I have a bit of a drive to get her to the vet.... And it's going to snow fairly heavily tomorrow (the trip can be awful during bad weather).

There's a pretty decent bunny vet on call for emergencies tonight, though he's not my 1st choice....

Am in a quandary over what to do, and am frightened for her. (So much so that my fear is clouding my judgement a bit.)

her belly seems soft, no bloating or gurgling sounds.

What to do??? (BTW, nothing has changed re. diet, circumstances, etc.)
 
Not yet - I need an empty syringe, and am a little too upset right now to run out and get it. I have simethicone here, though.
 
yes - and I'm not sure how to get it into her. I squirted a bit on one of my fingers for her to lick off, but she wasn't interested. Also tried getting her between my knees to give it, but she got scared and wriggled out.

Right now she's *eating,* so I'll be watching her poops, etc. ... I've only had her since June and have never been through any health issues with her. (And can't believe how anxious I am!)


Edit: I hate to "cry wolf," and am hoping that this is just an unusual day, but I've never seen her act lethargic when food's around.

Also just managed to get her to lick about 1/2 of a cc of simethicone off my fingers, and put a bit on her greens. she's eaten a little more since I last edited.
 
As reported earlier, she's eaten - and done DBFs and a lot of other normal things - but still hasn't pooped....

So either

1. She's having an off day and I'm overreacting

or

2. She really is fighting a g.i. slowdown - maybe from fur ingestion while grooming? (She's well into her spring shed.)

or

3. There's something else wrong, and the no pooping/indifferent to foodstuff is pointing to other problems (while being a serious problem all by itself).

But maybe I'm missing something here???

Now I understand why many people refer to their pets as "fur kids."That's what she is to me, and I'm pretty worried about her. Will get off to the emergency vet if I don't see any poop within the next hour or so. (I hate to stress her with an unnecessary vet visit, but....)


 
Is she eating any more?

Try to get her to do some exercise. It'll help. Isshe drinking?If it's only been a couple hours without pooping and she's eating a bit, it's not too serious. I would just keep monitoring her and seeing if she'll start eating more.
 
If you have canned pumpkin in the house (not pumpkin pie mixture) - and maybe some baby food - you might want to try mixing a bit of that with her food or just separately (without the pellets) and putting that down. She might eat it just out of curiousity.

The great thing about pumpkin is that it has both fluid and fiber and can help her start pooping again.

Is she touching her pellets at all? Could they be dusty from being at the bottom of the bag? Are the greens really really fresh? Or a day or so old?

Another thing to try is a spoonful of oatmeal.

I have some rabbits that seem to get bored with their food at times.Let me add a bit of oatmeal or a tiny bit of wheat germ (my show rabbits) or something that makes it "different" and suddnely they want to scarf it all down!

Peg
 
She hasn't had any pellets today; just greens and hay (2nd and 3d cut timothy from Kleenmama's). And her lunch greens had a generous helping of Italian parsley, which - normally - she'd kill for.

However, she *is* chowing down on Italian parsley and cilantro as I type - and is getting water, as i don't shake much off when I wash the greens. (I don't do it in advance, but immediately before I feed them to her.) Re. drinking, she seems about average on that, as she heads to the water bowl a lot if she's been eating hay, but not so much when she's been eating a fair amount of greens. She's a good hay eater, and I just put a fresh lot out to tempt her.

She hasn't been in her litter/hay box since around 1:00 pm, which is a bit unusual - it was her complete disinterest in food (even little pieces of banana) that really shook me up.

Now I'm the one who needs some simethecone... ;) (her last dose was about 45 minutes ago, BTW.)

If I see decent-sized poop in the box, I'll be so happy!!!


 
Let her run around tonight for a little longer than usual. Sometimes movement stimulates the stomach.Hopefully by then she will start pooping like crazy.

If she is eating she might have been fighting gas and now might beok. Our Molly gets gas once a month, we panicked the first couple of times, went to the doc. But by the time we made it,she was ok.

Pineapplehas enzymes to break down fur in the stomach. I am not sure of those enzymes are in canned pineapple, but they are in fresh one's for sure.

***

On a side note, rabbits are more picky if you take something away. See, when rabbits eat stuff there is bacteria in their stomach that helps to digest the food. When you remove something from their diet, that bacteria that was helping to digest that type of food starts to die, creating gas. I know that you said that you didn't change the diet, but I thought its an important thing to know. Good luck.
 
Its good that shes eating and had the simethicone. Hopefully she'll be pooping by tonight. Exercise is great....tummy rubs are good too.

Keep us posted!
 
thanks, all - she spent some time eating hay and just produced some slightly odd-looking, smelly poop. (fecal.) It's not much, but certainly better than nothing.

i've been playing with her and will keep it up - she seems more "with it" than she did this afternoon, too...
 
OK, we've got a nice-sized deposit of normal poops in the litter box, a lot of running around, much more hay-eating and so on. Yay!

Thanks, all, for your advice and support. I'll be keeping a close eye on N., just in case this is symptomatic of something else, but for now,I'm *very* relieved. (I'm sure you all know the feeling.)


 
She's cotinuing to eat/poop/etc. fine, but I'm still keeping a close eye on her and am planning to take her to the vet to rule out other possible problems (teeth, etc.) - bunnies are so good at hiding pain that I'm concerned about this being a tip off to other things...

and it's definitely *not* something I want to go through again, if it can be helped.
 
Just wanted to let everyone know that Nibbles is doing very well. I'm still waiting for the results of her fecal float -the vet couldn't find any obvious problems, and gave me Benebac and(just in case) Metacam. She's eating, pooping, peeing - and otherwise behaving - just fine, though it did take a couple of days for her poop to get back to normal size. I'm very grateful that she's a big hay eater.

Of course, I'm still worried.... and hoping and praying that there are no further problems.

Thanks again for everyone's advice and support!

:dutch
 
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