skiptracer
Active Member
Hi all,
I posted an introduction about a month ago - we have a 10 year old bunny that we adopted recently. So far he's been in good health and spirits.
For context: Lately, we noticed him drinking a lot more water than usual and more frequent urination. When we adopted him we were told to watch for signs of kidney failure, and taking these as indicators we sent him along to the vet yesterday.
His tests went well - he has no kidney issues, and all of his bloodwork came back normal. However, he was kept in for longer than usual due to a strange spell he had shortly after the procedures. Basically, he went completely limp and was unresponsive to anything- and so the vet (who is a bunny specialist, and has been working in emergency for most of her career) got him hooked up to an IV and gave him lots of good fluids, being concerned that he was near death.
Apparently there was no immediate reaction to this treatment (she said that with rabbits that are dying, they usually respond to this quite well, and quite quickly - even if just for a short while) and so she kept an eye on him. After quite some time, he started to hop around and eat some greens and behave like his usual self.
Since we have had him home, he is acting incredibly strangely. Much like the vet described, he is going through spells of complete limpness/unresponsiveness - these can last 2-10 minutes. His head is on the ground and his feet are stretched out behind/in front of him. For a bunny that is usually resistant to any handling (we can barely even pick him up for a toenail clipping!) he is unresponsive to our touch when he is like this - he doesn't try to move or resist. He also won't notice any pellets we place near his nose, despite the fact that when he is behaving 'normally' he goes CRAZY for them.
Then after a while - he hops up again. There is always a LOT of droppings in the place he was just laying, which we have been putting back into his litter tray. He'll hop over to his food and water and have a little of each - but he's not eating with vigour like before, just little amounts here and there.
It's also worth noting that he wants nothing to do with us - he used to give us head bumps for pats, and how he completely ignores us even when we are trying to comfort him (we could be doing more harm than good to our relationship with him by stroking him during these spells, but we honestly don't know what to do). We did call the Emergency vet clinic last night (that our vet works from) due to the first of these spells, but by the time I was off the phone he had decided t get back up and start hopping around. However, 5-10 minutes later, he had another episode.
I know that this is all quite vague but I'm hoping that someone might have some insight. We are concerned that he may be on his way out, but are sincerely hoping that we have a little more time with our little bun.
I posted an introduction about a month ago - we have a 10 year old bunny that we adopted recently. So far he's been in good health and spirits.
For context: Lately, we noticed him drinking a lot more water than usual and more frequent urination. When we adopted him we were told to watch for signs of kidney failure, and taking these as indicators we sent him along to the vet yesterday.
His tests went well - he has no kidney issues, and all of his bloodwork came back normal. However, he was kept in for longer than usual due to a strange spell he had shortly after the procedures. Basically, he went completely limp and was unresponsive to anything- and so the vet (who is a bunny specialist, and has been working in emergency for most of her career) got him hooked up to an IV and gave him lots of good fluids, being concerned that he was near death.
Apparently there was no immediate reaction to this treatment (she said that with rabbits that are dying, they usually respond to this quite well, and quite quickly - even if just for a short while) and so she kept an eye on him. After quite some time, he started to hop around and eat some greens and behave like his usual self.
Since we have had him home, he is acting incredibly strangely. Much like the vet described, he is going through spells of complete limpness/unresponsiveness - these can last 2-10 minutes. His head is on the ground and his feet are stretched out behind/in front of him. For a bunny that is usually resistant to any handling (we can barely even pick him up for a toenail clipping!) he is unresponsive to our touch when he is like this - he doesn't try to move or resist. He also won't notice any pellets we place near his nose, despite the fact that when he is behaving 'normally' he goes CRAZY for them.
Then after a while - he hops up again. There is always a LOT of droppings in the place he was just laying, which we have been putting back into his litter tray. He'll hop over to his food and water and have a little of each - but he's not eating with vigour like before, just little amounts here and there.
It's also worth noting that he wants nothing to do with us - he used to give us head bumps for pats, and how he completely ignores us even when we are trying to comfort him (we could be doing more harm than good to our relationship with him by stroking him during these spells, but we honestly don't know what to do). We did call the Emergency vet clinic last night (that our vet works from) due to the first of these spells, but by the time I was off the phone he had decided t get back up and start hopping around. However, 5-10 minutes later, he had another episode.
I know that this is all quite vague but I'm hoping that someone might have some insight. We are concerned that he may be on his way out, but are sincerely hoping that we have a little more time with our little bun.
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