Young Lionhead chewed her ceramic bowl!

[doodlebugger]

We are fostering a spayed Lionhead, I think she is about 5 months old now. She has been a crazy gal, keeping us on our toes! We have given her all sorts of toys, newspaper, fresh hay, pellets, and some daily greens. She has a huge cage and gets out once a day, five days a week or more for a long exercise session. Fast forward to today. She has tore her cage completely to shreds. Dug up her litter box, ripped paper, and was sitting in the middle of it, happy as a lark. I noticed all the pellets were out of her dish, which is a corner ceramic dish I purchased from a pet store in the small animal section, and very similar to the dish she used while waiting at our vet's office to be adopted. I picked up the dish and looked in horror as I noticed large chunks were missing from the corner! She was in a big binkie fit, as if to show how proud she was! :nono We removed her and put her in an exercise pen. I called the vet. I have located two huge pieces, several small shards, but I'm worried that she might have ingested some very tiny pieces. She's very tiny herself. The very savvy rabbit vet says to watch for blood in her poo or gi stasis signs. No rabbit savvy vets on call tonight for our practice, so I am quite nervous. Never had an experience with our bunnies like this. How do I check for blood in her poo? Anything we can do to help that stuff pass quickly?

 

[RavenousDragon]

Lots of hay is the key to helping anything pass! Blood in the poo probably won't show up, but if it does, the poo with either be VERY dark or red (depending on what part of the bowel is cut). Unfortunately, since these guys are hind gut fermenters, the microbes often digest the blood before it comes out. I'd also watch for excess salivation (e.g. wet chin) in case any cut her mouth. In a healthy rabbit (as far as my own searches have turned up) the average transit time of the GI tract of healthy rabbits (granted, this is with barium, which changes GI transit times), is anywhere from 12 to 28 hours. So after that point, if she is pooping and completely asymptomatic, I'd begin to believe you are in the clear.

Let us know how she does!

 

[doodlebugger]

So far, so good. She is doing everything normally. It's almost 1 a.m. here in the U.S. for me, and we haven't seen anything out of the ordinary. As we were further cleaning up her cage, we were finding more and more little shards. I believe she probably didn't even ingest it, but just chewed it and scattered the pieces when she was digging and dragging her stuff around her cage. She is eating greens, hay, and pellets, and doesn't seem to have any other issues. We were on the verge of adopting her, but she is like no other rabbit we have ever had and she is taking a lot of time and attention away from our other two buns. So, we aren't sure after this little stunt! Funny thing is that she had a ceramic bowl at the vet's office and she never bothered it!!!

 

[Aki]

I've never heard or a rabbit chewing a ceramic bowl - that's crazy! 0.o
Maybe she just charged into it and it bumped into something?
Anyway, it's good she's fine. She will probably calm down as she ages (I'm guessing she's not spayed yet either at 5 months?) but... at least if you decide to keep her, you won't get bored? ^^

 

[doodlebugger]

She came from a hoarding situation and we don't really know much about the conditions but it's my understanding it was someone who got into breeding and then got in over their head with too many litters and no sales. She was in a cage with rabbits from other litters, so they were not 100% on age but they did spay her about three weeks ago. It was believed she was about four to five months old at that time, so she might be closer to six now.

We had never heard of a bunny eating ceramic either, but where some of the pieces ended up are her favorite hiding spots, and there was definitive evidence she had chewed the dish. She has been chewing everything in sight. You should see the bite marks on her metal cage bars!!!

What is worse, we have an older female who broke the habit of ripping paper about a year ago. She sees all the attention the little one is getting and she has started ripping paper again!!! :laugh:

 

[doodlebugger]

Well, our little one is doing well, and is finally settling in. No more issues, and she didn't show any issues after the whole ceramic bowl incident. Our vet said it was her first time, not only through her vet practice, but also in her experience dealing with rescues/fosters, that she had heard of a rabbit trying to eat a ceramic bowl. LOL. Thankfully, it all turned out okay in the end. As long as nothing else major happens, she will be adopted on Friday.