Nutrition + Dental Disease

[Crie]

Some of you may have already seen my post on my little 12yo buns with dental disease, and I need TONS of help in the area of nutrition.

Clara is only eating about 2 TBSP of pellets a week, and a little hay here and there. I make Critical Care balls that she sometimes likes, but I'm definitely not getting the 6TBSP in her that I should be. I find if I push any more than 2TBSP of CC a day, she gets bloated and goes into hiding.

Someone had mentioned adding canned pumpkin to her diet, but is that something she could eat every day?

Does anyone have recipes for some sort of soft baked treat I could leave out for her on the days I'm at work?

Any recipes to get more pellets in her (she doesn't like them wet, but there's gotta be something I could add to it tonget her to like it).

HALP!!! (and thank you!)

 

[JBun]

She may not be wanting to eat more pellets because they make her feel sick. Especially if you're noticing the critical care causes bloating, it's likely the pellets are an issue too. Most often I've found in sensitive rabbits, it's the sugars and grains in the pellets(and critical care) that cause the digestive upset. And if she won't eat loose hay very well, then your options are very limited. But having been in a similar situation with a new rabbit I had years ago, I have a few ideas.

If your rabbit is sensitive to critical care and possibly pellets too, another option that might possibly work is sherwood recovery food. If may have less carbs and sugars that can sometimes be the cause of digestive upset. But if your bun is extra sensitive then the sherwood recovery food might also be an issue, so the way to go would be plain grass hay pellets, that are just chopped grass and nothing else.

This new rabbit I had, I discovered couldn't have any rabbit food pellets or he would get digestive upset and start to go into GI stasis, I noticed the same with critical care, and he wouldn't eat any long stem hay. Which left me with not knowing how to get food into him without it making him sick. But having had horses, I knew about plain hay pellets used to feed horses, that didn't contain anything but chopped hay. So that's what I tried and it worked. The plain hay pellets worked really well for this rabbit, stopped the digestive issues he was having, and eventually he started eating loose hay. And that's what his diet was, along with a few select greens, which he did really well on and never had GI stasis again.

I got the standlee brand of timothy hay pellets, they also have orchard grass pellets, and a teff grass pellet that I'm not familiar with. But my feed store only carried the timothy pellets. Though you can pay more and order either one online. The pellets are bigger than rabbit food pellets, but it wasn't a problem for my rabbit. If it is for your rabbit, you can soak them in warm water to soften them up. If you use less water, they won't come out too mushy and will be a more crumbly consistency, if that's what your rabbit prefers. So that would be my suggestion. Some farm stores will carry the standlee pellets, or you can order them online. Amazon has them for 3-4 times the cost of getting them at a farm store.

https://www.standleeforage.com/products/horse/#/