Do you have a rabbit that suffers recurrent bloat episodes?

Rudy has had 4 episodes of bloat in 12 months and Frances Harcourt Brown was discussing the issue with me this morning.

She said she had recently had a rabbit referred to her who had many recurrent bloat episodes and no cause could be found for it. She was unable to find any definitive evidence but came up with the theory that it was a possibility that the rabbit had a fairly minor gut slow down/blockage and the normal amount of gas was unable to pass, causing a build up and eventually pain etc. There was no obvious reason for it to happen to some rabbits and not others so, she though it might be to do with the rabbit's intestines. The only way to find out was to open the rabbit up and have a look. Her theory was correct and the rabbit had an abnormally sharp bend in the intestine which meant that 'normal' amounts of harder to pass matter were getting caught in the bend and unable to pass as they should, causing a build up of debris/gas. She straightened out the bend and it has successfully sorted out the problem. She has since carried out the op on another rabbit with the same symptoms caused by the same problem.

I just thought I'd pass on the info in case anyone here has a rabbit plagued with bloat episodes as it may be worth a referral/consultation. Rudy hasn't had enough episodes to warrant it yet but has been marked down as a 'possibility' if he continues to suffer. I got some really good advice on how to deal with it and what to look for, etc.

Thanks for passing on the info :wave:

Thats really interesting, we have a few buns with recurrent bloat although causes have been found for them eventually

Hugo's There said:

Thats really interesting, we have a few buns with recurrent bloat although causes have been found for them eventually

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I thought about Leon whilst she was telling me The condition must not be that far removed from what he and Jane's Boblet girls had. It's just having the good fortune to have warning signs rather than one fatal episode.

we had one girl cas who had 2 episodes in a month. When she came to us though she had a very lumpy abdomen and was too thin to spay so we always suspected something like a tumor was pressing on her intestines. Unfortunately we had to let her go during the second bout of bloat as she had quite obviously passed beyond all help so we never did find out if she had cancer but I shall file away this piece on info in my brain of many useful (and quite a few not so useful) facts!

Flint's recurrent stasis is due to a tumour pressing on his intestines. thankfully it appears to be slow growing and he has done really well on pain relief for the past year

That's fascinating, thanks for posting that. One of our buns is a recurrent bloater and it happened a lot in the first year we had him as a rescue. Since then and since we've bonded him the incidents are far less frequent and normally if we think hard enough we can pinpoint a cause. I think the impact of stress is often not given enough weight and consideration in these sorts of cases as a trigger for an episode, without a doubt there has always been a stress trigger for each episode, but of course that alone does not explain the predisposition to this condition. We know that our bun had coccidiosis at the RSPCA before we took him on and so us, and our vet, have assumed that there is some scar tissue in his gut which rather like the 'bend' you have described predisposes our bun to a blockage and resultant stasis and bloat. Picking up the early signs is imperative and keeping it at bay with lots of hay and veggies seems to help enormously. But I am very interested to hear Francis Harcourt-Brown's findings - that's amazing - and great that she has had positive results.

but these buns that you mentioned, how much hay are they eating? Is it 90% of their diet?

Happy Hopping said:

but these buns that you mentioned, how much hay are they eating? Is it 90% of their diet?

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Cas was eating tonnes of hay before. She was also eating for most of the first day of bloat/stasis and pooping all the way through but something was preventing it moving through her gut fast enough so she was getting a massive backlog in her intestines. Defo not diet related in this case.

I only feed hay and veg, no pellets at all, so it wasn't diet related in our case either. My bun also continues to eat and poop right up until the second he suddenly assumes the position to relieve gas from his tummy, only at that point does he refuse food, he literally suddenly stops eating in the middle of eating and tries to push his belly to the floor to relieve the wind. Droppings can continue for an hour after by which point he either recovers following administration of just metacam, sometimes metacam and an hour later metclopramide if he doesn't pick up, and sometimes he can get a full on stasis and painful bloat that takes a night of tummy rubs and medicines and feeding by hand or syringe to overcome, it just depends, we've been lucky that we always catch it early and he does it the same time of an evening, usually after he has just stuffed himself on the lawn or after a plate of veg - which makes me think about the sharp bend in the intestine (or scarring as I mentioned before) being a strong possibility! So was very interested to hear about that, thank you. We think he overeats!! He never knows when to stop eating til he bursts Thankfully his episodes are but once or twice a year now.

Very interesting.

Yalta has always suffered with recurrent bloat / gas problems - sometimes as often as 2-3 times a week (anything from 3 to 18 hours long). We've taken her to the vets numerous times, but they have never been able to find any specific cause.

We did notice a correlation to moulting - she would get much more frequent and more noticeable attacks when moulting. She has always had a very high hay based diet too.

Now that we de-fluff frequently when she is moulting - the attacks are more manageable and less frequent - so we had just put it down to that.

Might mention this the next time we take her (probably tomorrow morning - she seems to be having dental probs over the last couple of days).

Martin

Mart said:

Very interesting.

Yalta has always suffered with recurrent bloat / gas problems - sometimes as often as 2-3 times a week (anything from 3 to 18 hours long). We've taken her to the vets numerous times, but they have never been able to find any specific cause.

We did notice a correlation to moulting - she would get much more frequent and more noticeable attacks when moulting. She has always had a very high hay based diet too.

Now that we de-fluff frequently when she is moulting - the attacks are more manageable and less frequent - so we had just put it down to that.

Might mention this the next time we take her (probably tomorrow morning - she seems to be having dental probs over the last couple of days).

Martin

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That's interesting, I've given Rudy's situation a lot of thought since this subject came up. He seems to moult a lot and he's forever grooming Tinks. I've wondered in his case whether it could be a combination of unusual gut shape and ingesting a lot of hair. I've come to the conclusion that de-fuffing him as much as possible might worth trying in that it might be enough to sort the problem. He's also a good hay eater. I've also wondered if eating too quickly might not help (he has to eat quickly to stand any chance around Tinks!!)

Bunny Buddy said:

I've also wondered if eating too quickly might not help (he has to eat quickly to stand any chance around Tinks!!)

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Hmm - more in common here then. Yalta gobbles her food faster than any other bun I've known - same with water, she'll drink infrequently, but will take a lot each time.

Martin