Question on scratching and eating carpet

[Billybun]

Good morning all,

Its been 4 weeks since Billy's neutering procedure. He's still spunky and run around my condo. His behavior has changed slightly. He's MORE hyperactive and untrusting. When I come home from work, he will get up and put on a pose that he's ready to take off and do a getaway if I come a foot closer. Anyways, he's been somewhat damaging to my carpet, curtains, or anything like telephone cable. I got my keyboard, mouse telephone, RCA cables destroyed because he's chewing them. My first set of curtain is completely chewed (bottom part) and now he's going at my expensive living room carpet.

Should I be concern about his eating carpet habit? I try to put him back in his cage at odd days / nights when I think he's out of hand. Part of me feels bad that I have to put a time out on him by putting him back in the cage.

He's around 5 lbs now. He lost weight since I have fed him just pellet and his carrot intake. I think his diet is good but why is he eating my carpet?

Thanks!

 

[aurora369]

When a rabbit is neutered it can take a couple of months for the hormones to die off. Also, if he's still young, he is still going to go through his teenage years regardless of a neuter, he'll just be less smelly and less hormonal.

I would put him in his cage when not supervised if he is eating the carpet. Carpet can cause impactation in the digestive tract which can only by fixed by surgery.

His diet should consist mainly of hay. At a young age it should be grass hay with alfalfa and as they get older you can start weaning the alfalfa down to treat sized amounts. I would not have carrot as a staple in a rabbit diet, they are too high in sugar and carbs for an every day veggie. Pellets can be free choice until about six months old when he should be weaned down to about 1/4 cup per 5 pounds.


-Dawn

 

[Billybun]

Dawn,
Billy is 4.5 years old. I spend nearly half of the morning chasing after him because he hid underneath my couch. He's super active and I believe he must had ingested a lot of the carpet material when I had let him out of the cage before. I have only recently found out about this valley in my carpet underneath the couch. I am a bit concern about how much he had ingested. Gosh he reminds me a bit of that rabbit in the Monty Python movie! Anyways, ok I will keep him in his cage from now when I can't monitor him but I will let him out for couple of hours a day to get his daily exercise. Silly bunny!

Also I heard this sound like a spitting of water coming out of his stomach when I was rubbing it this morning. Is that a sign of hunger or gas?

Thanks!

 

[aurora369]

That could be gas, you can give him a gas medicine with active ingredient of simethicone. Give about 1cc every hour for 4 hours to see if that helps.

See if you can get him drinking more fluids. Spike some water with a bit of juice and offer it to him. Lots of fluid will help keep the gut hydrated and hopefully prevent an impactation. Also feed him lots of hay (grass hay preferably) to help push anything out as well. You can reduce his pellet intake or just not feed pellets for a couple of days.

Can you block Billy from getting under the couch? Use some wire mesh or something to fill the gape between the floor and the couch.

Watch him carefully over the next couple of days.

-Dawn

 

[Maureen Las]

Another thing that you could do is to get some large exercise pens ( they are made usually for dogs and/or kids) and put the pens in an area of the house where there is not carpet.
Years back my rabbit (RIP) Babette chewed the back of a cloth sofa totally into pieces without me knowing it (I was not very rabbit saavy at that time) ; all the time I thought that she was lying down behind the couch she was really taking it apart.

I pulled out the couch one day to clean and found pieces of cloth and threads, and string behind it ..it looked like it had been hacked away with scissors.

Ispent a lot tof time trying to hide this from my husband but eventUAlly he saw it and I still hear to this day how Babette ruined the couch. LOL( really not funny )

You really have to rabbit proof a room or just get them into a pen. Even supervising them isn't enough as mine have bit through phone cords...chomped through my computer speaker wires all beforeI could even do anything...right in front of me.

Chewing andpulling up the carpet can really be dangerous. It is an activity of digging and pulling that is very attractive to a rabbit's normal behavior outside

Fiber could form a blockage inside so the suggestions above to hydrate and give plenty of hay are right on target.
if aBilly is an adolescent bun neutering will definitely help him settle a lot but he still is an adolescent bun and they are always into something whether they are neutered or not.

Gpood Luck

 

[Billybun]

Billy drinks about 3/4 to 1 cup of water / day. I don't know if that' s enough for a 5 lb bunny. I feed him 2 romaine leave / day and abit over 1/4 of pellet. He gets about 2 inch of those fat carrot but I am working on cutting that down. He have access to Western Timothy hay all the time. Right now, I am building a fortress around my kitchen to keep him there. I never knew how smart bunnies are until I saw Billy trying to jump over the fortress I have set around my island kitchen counter this afternoon. Fortunately I saw him did the jump and I was able to stop him before he leap over to the other side.

I don't have juice because I don't drink them and so I will try to buy to when I get to a grocery store.

Another question I have is, what is safe to buy to reduce the itch he has around the side of his face. I have been feeling both side of his face, and it feels like dry scrabs under the fur-ry face. Any ideas what they are? Occasionally a small bunched up fur would loosen off and it might be due to him scratching it or that its dried up.

Thanks!

 

[Maureen Las]

Scabs on his face could be from many things...

does his his face get wet from his water bowl ( a developing fungal infection ?)

does he drool ( dental issues ) could cause a moist chin and neck with irritation and possible infection

fur mites( which cause hair loss)

or even rabbit syphilis( which is actuallynot uncommon)

Do you see him attempting to scratch is face. ?
I would attempt to examine the area a little closer

Maybe have someone hold him for you. Could he have food dried in his fur? if he definitely has scabs he should be examined by a vet that is knowledgeable about rabbit medicine.

Let us know

 

[aurora369]

Are the "scabs" on either side of his head, below the eye? Most rabbits have those bumps and they are normal. They feel like little tiny cones about 1mm to 2mm high and they should be on exactly the same spot on both sides.

My rabbits will sometimes have little clumps of fur come off like you are describing as well. I wouldn't be concerned about it unless he is losing excessive amounts of fur or he is scratching all the time.

-Dawn

 

[Billybun]

Dawn, yes that is exactly what you described they are. Wheewww, its great to hear that its "normal". He function quite normally and so I don't think its the other possible symptoms Angieluv had mention. But its good to know about these symptoms too. You guys are amazing

One other thing, he's getting some furs coming off from both of his hind legs (bottom). The vet said I should make sure that Billy gets very clean and soft surface to step on. So now I got these small mat placed in his cage as well as outside of the cage. Is there anything I can do like put a bandage cloth around it. The bare red but it does not look burst or inflamed.

 

[Orchid]

Dougal is only like 3 months old now? and he has a thing for my carpet....
We will not let him out if he is not being watched...it seems he likes to get into trouble. Today he started to try to chew the wood molding...cant win with him lol...

For me...I correct him with NO,..get him away from the area he is trying to eat but if he just will not stop I put him back in his crate...better that than getting impacted from the carpet. ( I think his testies are starting to drop)....

Good luck!!!

 

[Billybun]

Billy today gave me the cold and silence treatment. He did not want me to "even look" at him. He turned his back on me in his cage! I feel so bad for caging him or isolating him to just my kitchen. He's also doing the "I am not going to eat" to see what I am going to pamper him with. I putted two dry pieces of banana and apple juice for him but he has not touched it at all.

What can I do right now? Should I let him out again?

 

[tonyshuman]

If he's not eating, you should do whatever it takes to get him eating again. That may mean letting him out but supervising him to keep him from eating carpet. It may also mean force-feeding him. Not eating in 24 hours is an emergency. It sounds to me like he was going into stasis earlier--that's why he was misbehaving, and now he's fully into stasis. I think that, combined with the bare skin on his legs, means that he needs a vet appt tomorrow, and make sure you have a very rabbit savvy vet.

 

[Billybun]

I checked his food bowl this morning, it seems like he had finished his pellets (about over 1/4 quarter cup). This morning, I fed him 2 full romaine leaves and 2 inches of carrot and he fled to them.

I will let him have his freedom in my living room tonight.

 

[tonyshuman]

That's good, that he's eating.