Doe stopped eating and isn’t pooping

[Sarah Walmsley]

Hi everyone!
Looking for some advice. Our doe suddenly stopped eating and pooping its been over 24 hours now. She’s super lethargic and not doing well.
we took her to the vet, he gave us some pain medication and some critical care supplement but she refuses to have it. We managed to syringe feed some of the critical care to her but still no pooping and she won’t move around or eat anything else. anything else we can give her to get thing moving?

 

[Jackrabbit]

Hmm no sorry I lost a buck to that.

 

[Preitler]

What I do:
Make her move now and then, some hopping around to move the guts and get her out ogf that catatonia.
I give them soft belly massages, or put the rabbit on my knee, facing me, and rock the whole rabbit. You'll see pretty quick if that feels good to her. For 10-15 minutes every 2-3 hours (also through the night). Offer the most yummy food, i hold grass and herbs right against their noses until trhey get so angry that they bite it - once in their mouth they often keep munching, reluctantly, but it works for me.

Give water. Offer her a bowl directly where she's sitting, or syringe her some regularily. I also mix in Simethicone drops (infant gas release drops) to prevent gas building up. I try to get 20-40ml per session into them (4kg rabbits),

In my experience the two most common reasons are either bloat caused by gas, or a full or partially obstruction because of too much ingested fur, if your rabbit is shedding right now and had poop chains lately wool block is quite likely. Moving the guts imho helps in both cases, brushing them is kind of a gentle massage too.

When I suspect wool block I also give 1ml of paraffin oil, I need to mention that there is the possibility that some gets into the lung which would be very bad, but I never had that problem. Not all vets do that anymore, I've heard.

24h is a long time and an emergency, my vet gave some injection and drops to boost appetite, the oil treatment, don't remember much details, for some years I didn't need to go there when I did above as soon as I noted that something was off.

Good luck

 

[arachyd]

You need to get things moving inside her and keep her hydrated. If she isn't drinking you can give her pedialyte. Liquids are essential to get things moving. Sometimes when they won't eat their usual food they will eat some cilantro or slices of apple. It isn't a situation where you want to wait and see if it gets better. Like Preitler said, it's an emergency. Rabbits have such a long digestive tract that when they get a blockage it gives bacteria plenty of time to cause dangerous and painful bloating that can kill them quickly. Bloat can be caused by certain foods as well. I once lost one of my favorites to a tiny piece of cauliflower leaf that I gave to 3 rabbits. 1 got diarrhea, 1 had no problems and 1 ended up with bloat that killed him. I never feed rabbits any of the brassicas (cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, etc.) after that experience.

 

[Sarah Walmsley]

Update: The doe died last night
Thanks everyone for the advice. We did all we could, where in Canada there are not a lot of vets that treat rabbits, and the ones that do, are not super rabbit-saavy. We did the belly massages and semithicone but it was too late. We were away for 3 days on vacation and had someone pet sitting but she didn’t know much about rabbits so there may have been earlier warning signs but were overlooked. She was in a lot of pain but she’s not anymore. We are very sad but hopefully it doesn’t happen again or we know what to look for. Thanks everyone!

 

[Will]

Sorry for your loss. For future reference, I've never done it, but I've heard of people using a feeding tube to force feed raw pineapple juice to break down ingested fur. It has to be raw, not canned, because the heat used in the canning process destroys the enzymes that break down the fur.

 

[arachyd]

I'm sorry to hear of your loss.

 

[Lewis]

I am so sorry for your loss

 

[Preitler]

Ahh, sorry, Sometimes it just doesn't work out, not eating can also be a symptom of an underlaying issue, the final straw, they are so good in hiding problems.

IMHO that pineapple juice thing is more of a myth, it doesn't work. Hair is really, really hard to desolve, that doesn't make a dent, other than fluids that go in there may help to get things moving. It's somewhat like the apple seed myth - yes, there are cyanids in there, but you would need to feed several pounds of ground up apple seeds in one go to make the rabbit feel sick, if it hadn't already exploded.
Although a lot of sugar might not be good with any gut troubles, offering fruit is definitly worth a shot - they have a sweet tooth, and it's often just about to get them to take some bites to regain some appetite.

What can help is oily stuff, like feeding oil cake, or adding lineseed or sunflower oil to their pellets, but that's a preventative when a rabbit is shedding and comes with the side effect of a hoge calorie intake.
If I can't resolve such a problem within 12h with the things I mentioned above, including giving mineral oil, I'm off to the vet.

 

[Sarah Walmsley]

Ahh, sorry, Sometimes it just doesn't work out, not eating can also be a symptom of an underlaying issue, the final straw, they are so good in hiding problems.

IMHO that pineapple juice thing is more of a myth, it doesn't work. Hair is really, really hard to desolve, that doesn't make a dent, other than fluids that go in there may help to get things moving. It's somewhat like the apple seed myth - yes, there are cyanids in there, but you would need to feed several pounds of ground up apple seeds in one go to make the rabbit feel sick, if it hadn't already exploded.
Although a lot of sugar might not be good with any gut troubles, offering fruit is definitly worth a shot - they have a sweet tooth, and it's often just about to get them to take some bites to regain some appetite.

What can help is oily stuff, like feeding oil cake, or adding lineseed or sunflower oil to their pellets, but that's a preventative when a rabbit is shedding and comes with the side effect of a hoge calorie intake.
If I can't resolve such a problem within 12h with the things I mentioned above, including giving mineral oil, I'm off to the vet.

We will definitely keep that in mind for the future and will keep a close eye. I think you’re right in that she may have been hiding some other underlying problem. Unfortunately there are not many rabbit saavy vets near us, they’re very expensive and not very knowledgeable about rabbits. The vet we took her to, told us it was a mistake to give her unlimited pellets (which we were doing along with BOSS after she kindled to help with nursing). He was also the one that advised the wait and see approach even though we told him it had been just over 24 hrs of not eating or pooping by the time we got an appointment to get in to see him.) All that to say we got better advice on here and will have to travel a bit further in hopes of finding a better rabbit saavy vet. Thanks for the info. Its super helpful!

 

[Will]

Ahh, sorry, Sometimes it just doesn't work out, not eating can also be a symptom of an underlaying issue, the final straw, they are so good in hiding problems.

IMHO that pineapple juice thing is more of a myth, it doesn't work. Hair is really, really hard to desolve, that doesn't make a dent, other than fluids that go in there may help to get things moving. It's somewhat like the apple seed myth - yes, there are cyanids in there, but you would need to feed several pounds of ground up apple seeds in one go to make the rabbit feel sick, if it hadn't already exploded.

Like I said I don't have first-hand experience using pineapple juice. It would seem to make sense that it could possibly work since pineapple juice is used as meat tenderizer. It works by breaking down collagen fibers in the meat. It will also break down keratin, which is the protein that hair and claws are made of, although it takes much longer than it does to break down collagen.

 

[golden rabbitry]

if it's GI, feed baby veg food and baby gas drops, there are plenty of home remedies online