Not wanting to eat

[dayna]

My new angora doe is not wanting to eat. I looked and her teeth are fine. She's mad though. And I do not have the crap pellets she was getting before. Nor am I within 3 hours driving distance of being able to buy them.

She will not eat hay. ANY KIND OF HAY. Orchard grass, alfalfa, timothy. She will not eat alfalfa cubes. She will not eat a carrot chunk. She will not eat Ti leaves or Banana leaves. She will not eat Purina rabbit chow or Nutrena rabbit chow.

She will not eat sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds or barley.

She will not eat them sam I am, she will not eat green pellets and ham.

Soooo her poops are getting smaller. I *think* she's nibbled at the pellets. Nibbled being the key word here.

I do not have marshmallows.

Any other ideas? The buck is eating "okay". He doesn't like not having his regular food but the new stuff is growing on him.

 

[Zass]

Know how to force feed with a dropper?

 

[dayna]

Nope.

 

[Secuono]

What about regular fresh grass? There's bigger issues if they refuse all that you listed and grass....
Lay them on their back, use a needleless syringe and drip a little cooking oil in it's mouth, letting the rabbit lick it up and swallow before giving more.

Sometimes, new rabbits will not eat for a few days, I feed fresh grass if they refuse pellets, hay, cubes. Nearly always, they will eat the grass.

 

[dayna]

Okay, I will try the grass.

 

[Miss M]

I sure hope you can tempt her with something soon! I just lost a doe to gut stasis, because she stopped eating while on antibiotics (abscessed bug bite or scratch).

Oats coated lightly with blackstrap molasses? Banana? Corn cob?

 

[DogCatMom]

Here's a list of what I've offered to Parsley Graybuns since he moved in three weeks ago. Maybe some of these are available to you in your very different climate zone:

Fresh Plants:
flat-leaf ("Italian") parsley--his fave food, whence his name
arugula--leaves, stems, flowers, seed pods (mine went wild; he's helping with the excess)
Asian apple-pear
banana peels
branches of basil
blackberry leaves
butter and Boston lettuces, nice green/red leaves
half of a baby carrot (his "Welcome to Our House" treat the first day)
broken stalks of celery; leaves, too
chard and beet leaves (young plants)
chicory leaves and stems
dandelion leaves and flowers
one grape
plantain leaves (the "lanceola" variety, I think)
mallow, the weed (Malva spp.)
romaine leaves with the white part broken off
rose prunings
small piece of strawberry

We offered him fresh sage. He carefully laid it neatly on the floor away from everything else, perfectly untouched.

Hay:
timothy and orchard grass (two different bags)

Pellets:
(this one by Oxbow, although not the quantity indicated for his weight due to the massive amounts of fresh plant foods we're feeding him)

Is it possible, given her history, that wool block is setting in? Angoras can develop it if they ingest too much of their own fur/wool.

If there's fur stringing her poops together, she would benefit from papaya chunks, fresh pineapple chunks and/or fresh pineapple juice, or (should you happen to have them) papaya enzyme tables. Look up "wool block" either on this forum or the Internet for more info.

In force-feeding or -hydrating with a needle-less syringe, aim for the "pocket" behind the front teeth on the side of the rabbit's mouth (same idea as in dogs: don't fight the front teeth, just put the goods slowly on the tongue from the side of the mouth). I've hydrated ill dogs many times and can find the pocket on them. I've taken a cautious look at Parsley's side mouth pocket and it's much smaller! Of course, he weighs about one-tenth what the dogs have weighed.

Hope this little rabbit girl decides to eat SOON.

 

[Dood]

Have you tried oatmeal?

 

[JessicaR]

I had my NZR doe do the same thing when I got her. It took almost a week before she would eat, by the time she decided to eat again she was very boney, I even had to force water in her But she would not eat anything I gave her. Now she eats all her pellets and hay, and will even eat fresh greens. Hopefully your will decide so eat to eat soon.

 

[dayna]

See this is why I post here.

OATMEAL. Why the heck didn't I think of that? Just gave her some and saw she nibbled on her cube, and ate her carrot chunk.

 

[squidpop]

Rabbits love oatmeal- don't they- its weird because I've heard people say not to feed them oatmeal but if they love it so much I don't see how it could be bad for them- mine all go crazy over oatmeal more than carrots or anything else.

 

[Miss M]

See this is why I post here.

OATMEAL. Why the heck didn't I think of that? Just gave her some and saw she nibbled on her cube, and ate her carrot chunk.

So glad she's started taking some of your offerings!