Rabbit lost a lot of weight.

[Agatha]

Hello, I my rabbit recently went to the vet for a tooth removal. I have seen her eating; however, since she is bonded with my other rabbit, its harder to monitor how much she is eating. The vet has weigh her to be 2.00 kg (4.4 lbs) last time I went to the vet (2 and a half month ago). Today I decided to weigh her myself as she seems to be getting skinnier and she has lost a significant amount of weight (1.6 kg) so (3.53) which is almost 1lbs. She has been acting normal, but losing so much weight in a short amount of time is concerning. I am planning on taking her to the vet again this week. Does anyone have any advise on how to increase her weight?

Note: She has unlimited hay all the time and I feed both my rabbits 3/8 cups of pellets. (My previous vet told me they should be getting 1/8 cup per day).

 

[JBun]

I would be concerned that there's still something going on in her mouth or she developed an infection after the tooth removal, and this is affecting her eating and weight. Losing almost a quarter of her weight is a lot. I would suggest getting a hold of your vet right away and schedule asap to have your bun checked, if that hasn't already been done. If you have any meloxicam on hand, maybe ask your vet if you should give that until the appointment. Some pain relief may be helpful.

If she's able to eat pellets well, I would gradually increase those over the next few days, just until your vet can figure out what's going on and she starts putting weight back on. You may need to feed her in periods throughout the day and possibly separate her from her bun friend just while she's eating her pellet portion. Unless you want to just increase the other buns pellets as well for now, as this would be less complicated and wouldn't require separate feeding. Provided you're sure she's able to eat the pellets well and your other bun won't hog them all.

If she isn't eating pellets well, it could be due to mouth pain. If so, you could try soaking her pellets in warm water (made fresh and not left out too long) and make a pellet mush for her to eat. Or supplemental feed a recovery food mix like Critical Care if she'll eat that. She may be inclined to eat the soft food if hard food is hurting her to chew.