Choking on pellets

Has anyone heard of bunnies choking on SS pellets? I recently moved the buns from Excel on to SS pellets. They are scatter fed the pellets in their hay but Harry always gobbles it all up as fast as he can. On Tuesday morning Harry choked on one of the pellets. I'm not sure whether he ate it too fast and it went down the wrong way or if it actually got stuck but he just stopped moving for a moment (which for such a mad man, is guarranteed to get my attention immediately!) and then started gagging and retching He had huge long streams of drool hanging from his mouth and coming out of his nose bless him. I tried to keep him calm while we rang the vets and while I in a panic tried to work out how to do the heimlich on someone Harrys size if necessary. It was absolutely terrifying but thank goodness he somehow managed to dislodge it. He is on antibiotics now and the vet recommended feeding the pellets soaked for a few days but I'm now terrified about feeding him the pellets dry again. I was wondering whether in smaller rabbits the SS pellets are fine because they are so big that they have to chew them and eat slowly, but as giants are so much bigger they can still eat them too quickly and then because of the size and shape of the pellets they might be more likely to get stuck. Does anyone have any thoughts or advice?

I have actually lost a bunny when he choked on a pellet (not SS)... Unfortunately I couldn't save him. He was a large rabbit.

I had another one a few years ago which started choking, but he managed to dislodge it as well and was fine. This one was also a large rabbit.

I am very glad that your rabbit managed to survive this incident.

My Belgian Hare who is very excitable where food is concerned :roll: has done this on a couple of occasions. I now hand feed them to him one at a time.

Good grief! I didn't know they could choke on pellets :shock:

Poppy and Daisy are on SS adult and manage them just fine...it always worries me though as they look huge!!

Lily and Rosey are on SS junior pellets and the first time I gave them to them they wouldnt eat them...so I started them off on those by snapping them in half untill they could manage them ok and then moved onto bigger ones...I dont know wether snapping them would make them more or less of a hazard for your bun :?

LurcherGirl said:

I have actually lost a bunny when he choked on a pellet (not SS)... Unfortunately I couldn't save him. He was a large rabbit.

I had another one a few years ago which started choking, but he managed to dislodge it as well and was fine. This one was also a large rabbit.

I am very glad that your rabbit managed to survive this incident.

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I'm so sorry LurcherGirl, thats awful

Thank you for the suggestions bunniemum and megansmummy, I think hand feeding or snapping them in half might be safer. I might end up moving back to Excel though, as I know theres a risk this could happen with any pellets but I think I'll just be so worried when I go back to feeding them dry

Due to the fact we have so many members its happened on here before, but it is very rare. It happens with excel too, so I wouldnt reccommend changing back for that reason, as its not as good a food anyway. My understanding from reading threads in the past is that it is more likely to happen with small pellets, but I could be wrong.


There is a way to get a pellet out of a choking bun, I saw it online, you could google it, or it is on a thread here about choking, you could search the forum. It needs to be only done in emergency though as if done slightly wrong you can break their backs.

If your buns are really piggy eaters, perhaps changing to something like fibafirst which is big sticks would help?

I hope your bun is okay and stays infection-free.

I had a few incidents where mine nearly choked on pellets, luckily they managed to cough them back up and didnt get stuck in their windpipe etc. :shock: But I don't remember which brand this was, think it might have been Oxbow. Since changing to SS however it hasn't happened again despite somebunny being a little pig and hardly chewing her food at times....:roll:

I pick out any pellets smaller than about 1cm but have never had a choking incident

Thanks for your help everyone I think I'm going to stick with the SS for the time being and start gradually feeding him them dry by hand, before building up to scatter feeding again, just in case it does happen again. Hopefully there won't be anymore problems though!