My Rabbit Is Acting Weird And Not Eating

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beanchild79

beanchild79

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My french angora rabbit has been acting weird. She hasn't been eating her pellets or hay for the past 3-4 days and will either drink little to no water or almost an entire bottle. She's grinding her teeth a lot and when I took her out of her cage, she didn't even try to get away (she has an attitude and doesn't like to let me pick her up and will give me quite a time with it) and let me pick her up. I took her outside to an xpen with the remaining alive grass that is still here and she started eating that like she's never seen food before. She ate some spinach too. I took her temp too and I got a 100.5F reading but I tried again and the thermometer didn't work so I'm not sure if the first reading is trustworthy. Her wool is pulling out really easily but I don't know if that could be due to needing to be shorn.
My friend thinks that there could be something wrong with her teeth.
I'm not sure??
Should I bring her into the vet, or what do you guys think it could be? Please help!
 
Preitler said:
My first thought would be that she ingests too much fur, and has temporary blockages that come and go and hurt, or such. How do her poops look like, any Lisa Simpson necklaces?
Click to expand...
Teeth grinding is something rabbits will do when they're in pain. She may very well have wool blockage, especially if she's molting, but after not eating or drinking much for a few days she may not be pooping at all now.
Teeth could be an issue if she's more willing to eat soft food. You can't really check her back teeth without special tools, but you can at least check her front teeth for any obvious problems. If you can manage to get a thermometer in her, you should also be able to take a look at her front teeth; flip her over on her back and gently pull her lips back enough to see if everything looks straight and lined up correctly. Her top teeth should overlap her bottom teeth in what looks like a human overbite:
1667423408732.png
If any of the teeth are longer than the others, something is up. You can also palpate her cheeks very gently to see if there's any tenderness or abscess in her back teeth/jaw.
Whatever's wrong, it is critical for rabbits to keep food/water going in and coming out, to avoid gut stasis which is very hard to reverse (though it can be done). When I have an animal in this situation I let them have *anything* they're willing to eat, even sugary things like apples or carrots that I usually avoid, just to keep things moving. Fresh grass is great; spinach, kale, wild plantain, dandelion are all good. Parsley can sometimes be good to stimulate appetite.
I have also found that feeding Oxbow Critical Care can be super helpful to get them "over the hump" and back to eating again. It's a granular powder that you mix with warm water; you can make it more or less watery, depending on if you need to syringe-feed or not. Rabbits tend to like it, and if it's a tooth issue they may be willing to eat it when mixed to a paste texture. If they won't eat at all, make it more watery and give it slowly and carefully by syringe. This also gets some water into them.
1667422814568.png
If they've been off feed for a few days and I need to feed it with a syringe, I often add Bovidr Laboratories Nutri Drops as well:
1667422986276.png
Weighing her and keeping track of gains or losses can be helpful. Mostly, keep her eating and drinking by whatever means works (if rabbits don't drink, they *won't* eat.)
I haven't had much luck finding rabbit-savvy vets. Most vets don't understand the systems of hind-gut fermenters like rabbits.
 
Preitler said:
My first thought would be that she ingests too much fur, and has temporary blockages that come and go and hurt, or such. How do her poops look like, any Lisa Simpson necklaces?
Click to expand...
I was wondering that too... she hasn't been pooping much I think due to loss of appetite so I haven't noticed any new turds. On the other hand, it's hard to tell because she's in a wire cage and it all drops down and I only scoop it every couple of months or so because it's pretty cleanily the way I have it.
Alaska Satin said:
Teeth grinding is something rabbits will do when they're in pain. She may very well have wool blockage, especially if she's molting, but after not eating or drinking much for a few days she may not be pooping at all now.
Teeth could be an issue if she's more willing to eat soft food. You can't really check her back teeth without special tools, but you can at least check her front teeth for any obvious problems. If you can manage to get a thermometer in her, you should also be able to take a look at her front teeth; flip her over on her back and gently pull her lips back enough to see if everything looks straight and lined up correctly. Her top teeth should overlap her bottom teeth in what looks like a human overbite:
View attachment 32233
If any of the teeth are longer than the others, something is up. You can also palpate her cheeks very gently to see if there's any tenderness or abscess in her back teeth/jaw.
Whatever's wrong, it is critical for rabbits to keep food/water going in and coming out, to avoid gut stasis which is very hard to reverse (though it can be done). When I have an animal in this situation I let them have *anything* they're willing to eat, even sugary things like apples or carrots that I usually avoid, just to keep things moving. Fresh grass is great; spinach, kale, wild plantain, dandelion are all good. Parsley can sometimes be good to stimulate appetite.
I have also found that feeding Oxbow Critical Care can be super helpful to get them "over the hump" and back to eating again. It's a granular powder that you mix with warm water; you can make it more or less watery, depending on if you need to syringe-feed or not. Rabbits tend to like it, and if it's a tooth issue they may be willing to eat it when mixed to a paste texture. If they won't eat at all, make it more watery and give it slowly and carefully by syringe. This also gets some water into them.
View attachment 32231
If they've been off feed for a few days and I need to feed it with a syringe, I often add Bovidr Laboratories Nutri Drops as well:
View attachment 32232
Weighing her and keeping track of gains or losses can be helpful. Mostly, keep her eating and drinking by whatever means works (if rabbits don't drink, they *won't* eat.)
I haven't had much luck finding rabbit-savvy vets. Most vets don't understand the systems of hind-gut fermenters like rabbits.
Click to expand...
That's true. I'll try to take a look at her teeth today.
I've been giving her fresh grass, spinach, and salad greens and she's been eating them up. I noticed this morning that she ate a little bit of pellets! I'll give her some parsley today and maybe some oats and apples.
I'll have to look into that Oxbow Critical Care stuff! Where could I find it? Those drops look good too...I'll definitely try to find them.
The last time I weighed her she was about 11-12lbs and when I was carrying her out into an xpen she didn't feel any different haha! But I'll definitely reweigh her.
Yeah, unfortunately, most vets aren't good with rabbits the way they are with cats and dogs...
My mom called our vet yesterday though and got the vet tech on the line and the vet tech said that it sounded like something was wrong with her teeth and to give her some sticks to chew on. We made an appt (the soonest was this coming Tuesday) and they said that if she got better before then we could cancel the appt or if she got worse we could take her to urgent care. I gave her a large apple tree branch and this morning I checked up on her and noticed that she had really chewed up that stick! I think I'm going to get some Naturals By Rosewood chewing toys, which I've noticed are really good and my bunnies love them.
Still worried about my baby :( I love her a lot, she's the first bunny I got for starting my bunny business and she's given me a lot of joy. Hope she's okay....
 
beanchild79 said:
I was wondering that too... she hasn't been pooping much I think due to loss of appetite so I haven't noticed any new turds. On the other hand, it's hard to tell because she's in a wire cage and it all drops down and I only scoop it every couple of months or so because it's pretty cleanily the way I have it.

That's true. I'll try to take a look at her teeth today.
I've been giving her fresh grass, spinach, and salad greens and she's been eating them up. I noticed this morning that she ate a little bit of pellets! I'll give her some parsley today and maybe some oats and apples.
I'll have to look into that Oxbow Critical Care stuff! Where could I find it? Those drops look good too...I'll definitely try to find them.
The last time I weighed her she was about 11-12lbs and when I was carrying her out into an xpen she didn't feel any different haha! But I'll definitely reweigh her.
Yeah, unfortunately, most vets aren't good with rabbits the way they are with cats and dogs...
My mom called our vet yesterday though and got the vet tech on the line and the vet tech said that it sounded like something was wrong with her teeth and to give her some sticks to chew on. We made an appt (the soonest was this coming Tuesday) and they said that if she got better before then we could cancel the appt or if she got worse we could take her to urgent care. I gave her a large apple tree branch and this morning I checked up on her and noticed that she had really chewed up that stick! I think I'm going to get some Naturals By Rosewood chewing toys, which I've noticed are really good and my bunnies love them.
Still worried about my baby :( I love her a lot, she's the first bunny I got for starting my bunny business and she's given me a lot of joy. Hope she's okay....
Click to expand...
If she's going to town on sticks, I doubt it's a tooth issue. I have found that when rabbits have tooth problems, they're so sore that they won't eat anything they have to actually chew (which is one reason Critical Care is so great). @Preitler may have pegged it with the wool block suggestion.
Preitler said:
My first thought would be that she ingests too much fur, and has temporary blockages that come and go and hurt, or such. How do her poops look like, any Lisa Simpson necklaces?
Click to expand...
Either way, if she's back to eating I'd say you're probably out of the woods. Yay! You did great getting her out where she'd be interested in nibbling on something. If you have willow around, giving her some branches of that would be good since it's not only a great chew toy, but willow bark contains salicylic acid, which is an analgesic (they used to make aspirin out of it), and the rabbit can basically self-medicate.

The other thought I had is that maybe her feed got contaminated somehow and she didn't want to eat that particular batch of pellets. I had that happen this summer. One of my young bucks quit eating his pellets, but we found he would eat anything else we offered him. Eventually it occurred to me to empty his feeder and put in fresh pellets, and voila, he was happy again. Still no idea what happened, but he was the only one that had a problem...It wasn't the whole bag of feed since all the other rabbits were quite content.

It's still a good idea to have Critical Care and Nutridops on hand, since if a rabbits stops eating it can get serious pretty quickly. I get both Critical Care and NutriDrops at the local feed store or at PetZoo. You can also buy both of them online from bunnyrabbit.com. I think allthingsbunnies.com carries Critical Care too.
 

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