Rabbit not drinking issue [EDIT] Possible blood tests needed?

Hi. I posted in another thread about switching my rabbits onto pellets from museli/pellet mix.

Well i mentioned one rabbit, Foxxy who was leaving the pellets but picking out the museli. Anyway i have left the pellets and not put any more museli in so she would have to eat them. I think she has eaten some but she's been eating hay too. I changed her water bottle this morning which she had been drinking from and it was about the same she usually drinks however when i checked it earlier she doesn't appear to have drunk from it at all. It has gone down very miniscule. We cleaned the hutches today and so the rabbits were in the run in the conservatory. She passed both poops and wee while in the run so i wasn't concerned. It was only a little while ago when i went to cover the rabbits hutches for the night that i noticed she hadn't drank. We gave a few hours ago a tiny bit of broccoli and some carrot to all the rabbits. I gave Foxxy some parsley as well. She hasn't been acting out of character so i'm unsure what's going on.

Can anyone help with this? I'm really worried. We only lost Frosty on wednesday and i'm still very upset about losing him. What could this be with Foxxy? I mean she did pass wee while she was in the run so i am lost about what it could be.

Id keep monitoring the water bottle just to make sure she has actually stopped drinking before you get your self worried. It might just be that she's got enough water from the grass or isnt that thirsty today. If she still isnt drinking tomorrow think about taking her to the vets. I cant see why changing pellets would make her stop drinking though. Hope she is ok

Firstly I am sorry for your loss, if you dont mind me asking, how did you loose Frosty?

Not drinking could be for various reasons, for example worse case senerio it could be something to do with her kindeys but it could also be simply that she is just not thirsty.
I would get her to the vets in the week if she continues not to drink and in the mean time offer her veggies soaking wet to make sure she does not get dehydrated. Also it may be worth offering water in a bowl, some buns prefer that.
Keep a close eye on her and if she stops eating or stops pooping class it as an emergency and get her seen asap.

Hi thanks for your replies.

Well Frosty had dental disease. We were given metacam for him to help him and prolong his life. The vet said that once he stops eating and drinking then to take him in to be PTS. He died on wednesday just before we were about to take him to be checked out as he had lost weight. He was still eating/drinking until then so we don't know what happened.

We brought Foxxy in 15 minutes ago and gave her some water by syringe. There is no evidence of wee in her litter tray but she had just pooped when we got her out of her hutch. We gave her some more parsely from the fridge and she ate those like she'd never eaten before. We checked her over for any odd lumps etc and found nothing out of ordinary there. As she did pass wee while in the run in the conservatory it must mean she had been drinking before that so it is only in the last 6-7 hours she hasn't passed wee or drank (not including the syringed water). The rabbits are all moulting right now but i don't know if that is anything to do with it. I'm quite distressed right now because i really don't want to lose another rabbit this year.

Is her water bottle working okay?
If she's fine in herself there might be something wrong with the bottle stopping the water from coming out properly

I'm quite shocked that a vet would advise to give a dental rabbit no treatment except metacam until it died. I'd definitely recommend you find a different vet. Can you post what area you are in so somebody can recommend a vet?

As far as Foxxy is concerned...does she seem different to her normal self? If she seems ill or quiet at all, I'd suggest making an appointment at the vets tomorrow.

What does she normally drink out of? If it's a bottle, it could be something as simple as a broken spout. Get her a bowl of water and keep a close eye on her tonight.

Veg contains quite a lot of water, so is a good way of getting fluid into her if she won't drink (don't feed her veg if she's not used to eating it though).

Good luck

I too am appauled that a vet would only offer pain relief as the only treatment to a dental bun and tell you to just basically wait for it to die, i can not actually believe it, if you are still with this vet i would strongly urge you to find a more rabbit savvy vet.
As said before offer her water in a bowl and maybe buy a new bottle tomorrow.

No, Foxxy is acting normally with the only difference being the drinking. I just checked on her and she has now done a lot of normal looking poops and also she's weed in her litter tray. She is also munching away on hay. I checked the water bottle and it is working. I put my finger on the spout and pushed the ball and water came out of it.

Regarding Frosty, we got told by the vet that they couldn't do anything else as it was virtually all of Frosty's back teeth roots that were the problem. apparently they had another rabbit with dental disease that only had one bad tooth that lasted 8 months after the diagnosis and being put on the metacam. He had to have an abcess lanced and we had to squeeze it twice a day for a while but they did say that he'd have to go back and be PTS once we could no longer squeeze anything out of it.

I'm confused by your reactions because to be honest we were recommended to our vet by my sister's friend who said they were known to be rabbit friendly vets. Could they have done something for Frosty? We did ask a few other vets about him when we took others for myxi and VHD injections and they said the same thing about just making his life as comfortable as possible with the metacam until he stops eating/drinking and then PTS.

[edit] - But i must say he had been in for a molar tooth file check up when the vet found the abcess and when uner the GA they also x-rayed and found the molar problems. That's how we know he had dental disease. They did file the molar spurs down as well back in June.

Not really knowing the full story of Frosty we cant determin if your vet was doing the right thing on not however its possible that there was noting else the vet could do. Abcesses in rabbits are hard to treat at the best of times but its even more difficult when they are in the mouth. From some one who has recently had the same problem, my vet has done as much for my bun as she can but when the abcess re-occurs he will have to be pts so its not unheard of.

shelley said:

Not really knowing the full story of Frosty we cant determin if your vet was doing the right thing on not however its possible that there was noting else the vet could do. Abcesses in rabbits are hard to treat at the best of times but its even more difficult when they are in the mouth. From some one who has recently had the same problem, my vet has done as much for my bun as she can but when the abcess re-occurs he will have to be pts so its not unheard of.

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I'm sorry but I don't agree with this. Any vet who only gives metacam to a rabbit with dental problems or an abscess is NOT a good vet in my opinion.

I am sorry to hear you lost a bunny recently.

It doesn't sound like anything is wrong with you bunny now, but do keep a close eye on her (I know you will anyway). Some days bunnies seem to drink alot and others hardly at all. Definitely try a bowl of water and dripping wet veg.

Try not to worry too much until you have to xxx

I know this post is about Foxxy so will try not to stray away from her too much, all I will say is that now 'a' days a lot more can be done for dental bunnies, the goal is to fight not give up.

Ok we checked her this morning. The water bottle had been drank from. She usually drinks around the same as Scruffy and hers is now about the same level as his. She has been eating hay. I am still trying to get her to munch on pellets. I only put in a tiny bit of museli which she munched on straight away. Should i just leave the pellets in until she eats them? (i've been slowly weaning all the rabbits off the museli, we used to mix in pellets with the museli but want to completely remove the museli as advised by the vet)

Something i'd like to know about rabbits drinking is how often are they supposed to drink? Up until June when Frosty was diagnosed with dental disease we had been putting vitamins in the water bottles and the rabbits drank a lot but since we have stopped with the vitamins and just put in fresh water they are drinking less from the bottles now. One vet told us before when we asked about the vitamins that it was fine, the vet we saw about Frosty said they don't need them so to remove them. I'm just wondering if it is normal for a rabbit to not drink for so long because if this happens again with Foxxy (or any of the others) then i don't want to panic when there is no need to. From when i changed the water yesterday morning to when i covered the hutches (about 10:30pm) last night about 12 hours had passed with the bottle looking untouched (even though she did wee while in the run about 5pm).

I might be worrying so much because of losing Frosty recently but i just want to be sure. As Foxxy has been drinking and is still eating we are going to watch her during the day and see how she goes. We may need to take her to the vet but she does seem to be back to normal in regard to the drinking.

Generally speaking rabbits should not need added vitamins as they should be getting all they need from a diet of unlimited hay and forage, a very small amount od pellets and a small amount of fresh herbs/veg BUT if you feel they have stopped drinking as much since removing the vitamins then it may not hurt to add Avipro Plus short term to see if that increases the water consumtption, it may be that they prefer the taste of the water with the vitamins so were drinking more because it was tasty.

http://www.vetscriptions.co.uk/AVIPRO.html

Well the water has gone down just a little since when we checked this morning. I checked in her litter tray and she has weed again (was in a different area to the wee i saw last night) and she has been doing poops. She has had a few sticky ones as she was given parsley, carrot and a little broccoli last night and that can cause those but mostly they've been normal looking poops. She is still acting normal. I'm still a little concerned about the drinking though.

I can't see any signs of any illnesses just that she isn't drinking as much but she is still eating (though still not many of the pellets).

Ok we are just about to cover the rabbits for the night. I am not sure if she's drank anything since this morning. If she does the same thing like last night does that mean she just isn't thirsty until the morning? (i mean after we syringed some water, by morning the water bottle had been drank from and then all day it either went down very miniscule or not at all)

We are going to give her some more parsley and i am going to syringe a little water just so i know she's had some fluid. Fingers crossed she is drinking normally tomorrow otherwise i am thinking a trip to the vet will be needed.

Ok after checking her this morning. She is eating hay. I changed the pellets but she didn't go over to them. It doesn't look like she has drunk anything since we syringed some last night about 10pm (and gave her some wet parsley). I did notice she has been passing wee but i am unsure now as the two separate wee areas in the litter tray are now one big wee area so i am assuming she has weed recently. She has been sitting on it a lot. There are poops but not as much as usual. We are going to take her to the vets at 7pm tonight. Until then we are going to try wet parsley and i was going to get some pineapple juice and try a little bit of that?

Right been to vets. He felt around her stomach area and it wasn't bloated or anything. He said it could possibly be dental and weighed her. Then said that he would give her an anti-inflammatory injection and another one to stimulate drinking/eating. We have to go back tomorrow for her to be checked again and if we don't notice any improvement with the drinking then she may need blood tests done.

I'm not sure about it being dental as she has not had any watery eyes and the rabbits we have that do have dental issues have watery eyes. I'm not ruling it out completely but it doesn't fit with the other dental rabbits.

I really hope she is alright. We put her out in the run a few hours before the vet trip and she did a wee and (although not as many as usual) she did poops as well. So hopefully by tomorrow she'll have improved otherwise blood tests will be done.

We took Foxxy back to the vets as the vet wanted to see her again. We told him that she still hadn't been drinking from the bottle but we did give some water by syringe and gave some wet parsley to her. Also she was in the indoor run and did pass wee and poop. He said to take her back on friday for a weight check because at the moment she weighs 2.56kg but he wants to see if her weight changes. From what he said he can't find anything wrong with her. He did say that maybe the syringe water and wet parsley is stopping her from drinking out of the bottle. He also said that they can tell by a rabbits skin if dehydrated. Foxxy isn't dehydrated and he did say that the worrying should really be if she wasn't eating anything as that usually means dental issues. He did ask how much Foxxy used to drink before we noticed her not drinking from the bottle and we said about 50ml. On the water bottles the counting goes from 500ml down when the bottle is placed so going by the white lines Foxxy used to drink between the 50ml(550ml)line and 100ml(500ml) but since it has gotten colder she was drinking around 50ml a day. Foxxy and Scruffy usually drank about the same amount.

Dental issues should definitly not be rulled out as they can have many different effects besides watery eyes. Did the vet check inside her mouth for any spurs or lesions?
Dental issues are usually the first thing to be suspected if a rabbit suddenly goes off food or becomes selective with their food.
The fact that you are syringing her water and feeding wet parsley may well be keeping her hydrated enough that she does not feel the need to drink by herself so do not worry too much.
Did the vet administer any pain relief?