GI Stasis - help / advice needed pls

Hi

I have four rabbits, they are feed on excel pellets, greens/herbs am and pm and unlimited hay of all sorts of varieties. I reckon on average I have one per month who goes through a phase of not eating. Got some metoclopramide from the vet in liquid form so once I notice the hunched little rabbit not eating, I give them a dose and then they are fine within a couple of hours then totally back to normal. It happened yesterday, uncovered them at 7am and Fred was looking very unhappy. He had been fine when I covered them them up the night before. Picked him up easily (normally a right old job), gave him his medicine and by 10am he was fine.

Am I doing anything wrong ie feeding to cause this or is this average for 4 rabbits normal???

Thanks in advance.

If you are having problems with gut stasis, I would advise getting them all onto as high a fibre diet as possible.

Excel is a lower fibre food when compared to some foods, Science Selective is 19% fibre, Bunny Basics T is 24 ish % fibre, Allan and Page is also another high fibre food. I would suggest slowly changing them over to one of these.

Another thought is how much pellets do they get a day between them?

Do you feed high carbohydrate foods, rabbit treats, aples, carrots etc? If you do I would cut these out and replace with green leafed veg.

Do you feed high 'wind' foods such as cauliflower, broccoli, if you do withdraw them and see if things improve.

Hi
thanks for reply. I have them on excel/science select, mix the two together. They get about a handful morning and evening in each hutch which is then shared by two of them.

DOn't give any sweet treats, just spring greens and herbs such as parsley, corriander, mint and sage.

They have plenty of timothy hay, meadow hay, dried and fresh grass and the natural range of mixed leaves etc.

Thought the above was ok but wondering if not?

Thanks

The diet sounds good to me, I would look at decreasing the amount of pellets they get and feed the amount you give once a day either in the morning or the evening and also move them totally over to the SS and see how this affects them.

One of my rabbits, Smokey, is really prone to stasis. I've found with her that although she quite likes pellets, she seems to get more bouts of stasis while on them. I've switched them back to a mix (they don't eat selectively) and she has been better, I think some rabbits don't tolerate pellets as well as others.

Hi there! I wonder if it is ok to offer some possibly controversial advice, based on experience of my own herd of five bunnies.

I was having a nightmare of a time for about 1 year with approximately 2 bunnies per month going into stasis. I went through a horrible phase of trying to sort their diets and sending them for dentals, where occasionally we would find a spur but often not. I literally spent about £2000 trying to sort the problem. I was at the end of my tether, until one day one bunny developed full blown EC. I treated them all with Panacur and the bunny got better, but interestingly the problems improved in ALL of them - no more GI stasis.

At this current time, my bunnies are treated every 2-3 months with 9 days of Panacur - this is a little more than recommended by the manufacturers but in fact the risks to my bunnies of GI stasis and its complications are FAR greater.

There is some evidence to suggest that EC can have subtle symptoms on the guts of rabbits in the absence of other clinical symptoms. SarahP experienced a similar pattern with hers.

I would be inclined of course to ensure diet is optimal etc etc etc but would also consider routine Panacur treatment in your wee herd. I'd be interested to hear how they get on with it.

To be honest, I am inclined to think that diet is not the problem here.

Hope this is helpful in some way

Fiona xxx

Hi
That is very interesting thanks as I have just finished, well 3 weeks ago, a 28 day course of Panacur as I lost a rabbit to EC in Jan and Feb and the vet mentioned as they all share the same garden I should treat them all just in case. Seems to fit in with what you say.

Will keep a eye on diet and take all advice given on that but will look at another shorter course of Panacur in a couple of months as you suggested in your thread. Thanks info much appreciated.

Strange thing was someone told me I was killing them with kindness as I clean them out too much, this I don't agree with.

Jennie Wright said:

Hi
That is very interesting thanks as I have just finished, well 3 weeks ago, a 28 day course of Panacur as I lost a rabbit to EC in Jan and Feb and the vet mentioned as they all share the same garden I should treat them all just in case. Seems to fit in with what you say.

Will keep a eye on diet and take all advice given on that but will look at another shorter course of Panacur in a couple of months as you suggested in your thread. Thanks info much appreciated.

Strange thing was someone told me I was killing them with kindness as I clean them out too much, this I don't agree with.

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Hi again, I wondered if there has been any GI stasis since they ended the Panacur course 3 weeks ago? This happened to me and I kept going for an extra two weeks (6 weeks in total) and then got into giving them it every 2-3months routinely.

Fiona x

Well, not sure just Fred on Monday am, not eating, had his med then fine again so not sure. Rest are fine. What do you think? Fred never lived with the one who died from EC, he just runs in the same garden.

Jennie Wright said:

Well, not sure just Fred on Monday am, not eating, had his med then fine again so not sure. Rest are fine. What do you think? Fred never lived with the one who died from EC, he just runs in the same garden.

Click to expand...

This is what happened to mines, I spoke to my vet and gave them an extra couple of weeks on Panacur at that point. Yeah one of my bunnies was quite badly affected and never lived with the bunny who had EC, all very strange. However, the ones who did live with the infected bunny were all much more affected so there was definite pattern.

Fiona x

Definitely agree with Fionabun. Also Sarahbarnsley on here has had a similar experience with one of her bunnies. I would definitely treat it as if it is an EC symptom and go from there.

Unfortunately with mine, the EC wasn't diagnosed anywhere near soon enough (approx 10 months later of continuous stasis issues), and the condition became permanent. One has been PTS and the other isn't in great shape either.