GI/Tummy issues EVERY few weeks -- PLEASE HELP (depserate)

[ancoal]

I have a dwarf/dwarf mix named Stella. I adopted her from a rescue about 3 months ago (they believe she is 1-2 years old, but did not know for sure her age). The first month she lived with me she was great -- she lives inside with me, she gets unlimited amounts of Timothy hay, 1/8-1/4 cup pellets per day, and 1 cup of dark leafy greens every 1-2 days. I give her a super small piece of apple maybe once or twice per week as a treat.

About a month after I got her home I noticed one morning that she seemed a bit lethargic and had not eaten very much hay or pooped very much, I cleaned out her litter box and panicked when I realized at the end of the day that she had not pooped AT ALL and had not eaten anything. I took her to the vet and they gave her medication to get her stomach moving. The medication was 3 X per day for 7 days. This helped, but about 1.5 weeks after I finished the medication it happened again. I brought her the vet, they gave me the same medication plus antibiotics just in case and this helped again. Now, its 1.5 weeks since I finished this last round of medication and it seems to be happening again.

I CAN'T afford to bring her to the vet every 3 weeks (cost wise, time wise, or sanity-wise -- I feel totally sick over the fact that she keeps getting sick, like I am doing something terribly wrong).

Does anyone know of ways to PREVENT this from happening and a way to fix it when it does without having to bring her to the vet every single time. The vet said some bunny owners are just at the vet every few months with this issue, which I think is ridiculous -- it can't be good for the rabbits to just wait until it happens if it keeps reoccurring. This is my first time owning a rabbit and I am desperate for help. Please -- any advice is appreciated.

 

[a7736100]

Cut out greens and apples for now. Reduce pellets. Are you using plain pellets? Gentle tummy rubs. Get her to run around often. After she seems stable you can start giving her parsley.

 

[MamaSheepdog]

I am sorry to hear that your little rabbit is having problems. When she has problems, I would withhold the pellets and replace with an equal serving of rolled oatmeal, such as Quaker Old Fashioned, not the quick cooking variety, which has too much fiber removed. A good romp around the house may help to get her gut moving again.

What type of medication did the vet prescribe? Was it antibiotics? They kill off good and bad bacteria, so her gut flora would have been killed off.

Even if that is not the case, I would recommend getting a probiotic paste at a feed store. I have one by Manna-Pro called Jump-Start Plus. It is marketed for horses, goats, etc. You would give her a pea-sized bit of it daily for about a week to ten days.

Another issue that may be causing problems is "wool-block", which is the same thing as a cat's hairball. Do you ever find her droppings connected to one another by strands of fur? Giving her food that contains the enzyme Bromelain will dissolve the blockage. Fresh pineapple and papaya contain the enzyme, and it is the active ingredient in "Adolf's Meat Tenderizer" which could be sprinkled on her feed. I recently bought some Papaya and Pineapple Enzyme tablets, and several of my rabbits ate them, while others showed no interest. I am assuming they were self-medicating, and ate them if they needed them.

Please keep us updated on her progress! I hope you can get her to be a healthy and happy bunny again! :clover:

 

[Piper]

- 1st, how much does she weigh???

For humans, some advocate a bland diet / or a "BRAT" or "BRATY" diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast), for an upset stomach.
For rabbits the diet is hay and oats - whole oats or rolled (rolled oats like Quaker Old Fashioned Oats, not quick oats)
take out all other items.
- rabbits are herbavores, not vegitarians. Plants like lettuce, can hurt them.
- What greens are you feeding? Depending on the rabbit's weight, what seems like a small piece of apple, may be too large, too.
- probiotics are recomended, too.

 

[MaggieJ]

Tummy upsets are generally of two types: diarrhea and gas, which is treated with hay and rolled oats; and gut stasis or fur block which is characterized by lack of poops or fur in the poops. The two problems are quite distinct and it sounds to me as though Stella is suffering from the second one. The diet you are giving her should not be causing this problem. I'm not certain what greens you have been feeding, but if anything greens are more likely to cause diarrhea than gut stasis.

I wonder about the medicine the vet prescribed for her. It could be it was inappropriate... A lot of vets are not rabbit savvy. Did you get a diagnosis, in so many words? You certainly should not be having to take your rabbit to the vet. You are perfectly correct that prevention is the answer to this problem.

Here is a link about gut stasis. While I do not agree 100% with everything in it, the information is worth perusing to gain more understanding of what the condition entails.
http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/ileus.html

Notice that the author recommends grass hay, wet leafy greens (dandelions are great) and abdominal massage, among other things. Exercise is also important.

 

[Miss M]

It's true, you should probably reduce her diet to plain pellets and hay for now. You can actually take her off of pellets completely for several days, and feed her rolled oats and hay (regular old fashioned kitchen oatmeal, not quick oats). Rolled oats are very easy on the digestive system of a bunny, and give the system time to correct itself.

It would probably be good to give her some probiotics, too. You can do a search for probiotics in the forum by clicking the "search" button above, and find out what members use typically. If I'm not mistaken, you can just get some for people that is inside capsules, and just open a capsule and dump it into the oats or pellets. If it isn't getting eaten, you can add a little blackstrap molasses, and stir it in to coat the feed with the molasses and probiotics. The blackstrap also is very rich in nutrients and is easy on the tummy, but don't use a lot of it.

Probiotics would help restore the good gut flora to her system. Her gut flora is probably out of whack, especially after the antibiotics. But even without probiotics, just using oatmeal and hay for a few days, and then slowly replacing the oatmeal with plain pellets (over a few days' time), should go a long way toward helping her get back to being healthy.

What we mean by plain pellets is a good quality pellet feed that does not have added "candy" in it. A lot of pet store rabbit food is really made for people's eyes. They put in lots of pretty colored crunchy bits, corn kernels, all kinds of stuff to make you think that it must be better than those boring-looking plain pellets. It isn't. All those extras are actually not very good for your bun.

You can usually find better quality pellets -- I mean, pellets that are made for the sake of the rabbits and not made to look good for the human buying them -- at a feed store, rather than at a pet store. You can sometimes find plain pellets at a pet store, but the experience of the members of this forum has been that they are usually not as good in quality as what you can find at a feed store.

Even Purina, which is generally not really considered a great feed on here, but which I fed without problems for some time (Purina Complete), would be fine and much preferable to your typical pet store feed.

On another note, Timothy hay is wonderful stuff, but rabbits do great on other, less expensive hays as well. Unless you happen to live where Timothy is cheap.

Keeping her on unlimited hay like you've been doing will go a long way toward helping keep her gut moving and working like it's supposed to.

Hope this helps, and I'm sure you'll hear quite a few other members chime in with help, too! Probably a couple more before I hit the "Submit" button, in fact. You've found a great forum full of people who will do their darnedest to help you.

Welcome to RabbitTalk! :welcomewagon:<br /><br />__________ Tue Oct 16, 2012 10:40 am __________<br /><br />I was right! Several people beat me to the button on this one! :lol:

MamaSheepDog has a good point -- if her poops were connected by fur, you could be looking at wool block. If that's the case, do exactly what she says, as quickly as possible.

 

[jollysrabbits]

have you tried apple cider vinegar in the water, a little may help with the stomach, it wont hurt it at least. i give my buns some 1 week out of every month. i think its 2 teaspoons per gallon.