Urgent - Not eating

This morning Amos seemed ok.
Lunchtime noticed he was sitting in his little house on the littertray, not normal for him he only normally goes in to use the toilet. Still not right at 5 so called vet. She advised to seperate from his girlfriend and keep and eye and if no pooing being in. As he hadn't improved took him in and she gave him an antibiotic and a gut stimulant.
Brought him home and he seemed to perk up a bit, has drank loads. Peeing but no poos. Still not eating and now seems to be lethagic again.
Any ideas?

Syringe water into him ?

Get him moving a lot, to get rid of gas/bloat.

Encourage eating by offering some forage/weeds/grass with his hay.

he also seems to be making a clicking noise with his moth occasionally?
His girlfriend isn't showing any symptoms.

He has every possible food stuff to try and tempt him! Will get him moving.

Did they check his teeth?

The clicking noise is most likely the sound rabbits make when they're in a lot of pain. Has your rabbit been given any pain relief? If not, I'd suggest taking bunny to the vet and asking for some metacam. Did the vet look at your rabbit's teeth?

Sending lots of vibes for your bunny x

Lisa & Amos said:

This morning Amos seemed ok.
Lunchtime noticed he was sitting in his little house on the littertray, not normal for him he only normally goes in to use the toilet. Still not right at 5 so called vet. She advised to seperate from his girlfriend and keep and eye and if no pooing being in. As he hadn't improved took him in and she gave him an antibiotic and a gut stimulant.
Brought him home and he seemed to perk up a bit, has drank loads. Peeing but no poos. Still not eating and now seems to be lethagic again.
Any ideas?

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hi it sound like this bunny is going into GI Stasis, you need to syringe feed him as soon as possible with recovery food and make sure he drinks water, did the vet give you any gut stimulant to take home and give him?? if not you need to get some simethicone asap (otherwise known as infacol) to disperse the air bubbles in his belly and take him back to vet tomorrow, you can give infacol at a dose of 1ml at a time about every 4 hrs, recovery food should be given at least every 4 hrs, you could very gently give him belly massage to help disperse the air, and if you cant find an obvious cause for it, then it is most likely his back teeth may need doing, he may have painful spurs which would stop him eating and has the vet given you any metacam to take home?? if not get some tomorrow from the vet, a bunny in pain will refuse to eat, to be honest if the bun isn't improving by the morning i would get him back to the vet tomorrow first thing as stasis cannot be left xxxx

How long is it since you know for sure he ate something?

His digestive system needs to have something to process, if not the bacteria will start to die off and can take a while to rebuild. It becomes serious after about 12 hours for a rabbit to have not eaten and after 24 hours is extremely serious.

As others have said I would have expected the vet to give Amos a painkiller. Pain (teeth being just one of the causes) is often a reason for rabbits to stop eating. Often it's gut pain caused by gas and once the combination of gut stimulant, painkiller etc is given everything gets moving again though obviously if it's dental or another cause it may need further investigation. It is however imperative he's not in pain to get him eating again.

I hope you're managing to tempt him to eat something.

try and tempt the bunny to eat again by giving him fresh herbs, such as coriander , parsley, basil and even mint,i always buy the growing herbs form the supermarket, often it's herbs that starts them eating again because of the strong aroma x

It sounds like he is in a lot of pain. Hunching up, grinding their teeth (the clicking sound) and also drinking a lot is a sign of severe pain/discomfort. I'm not sure why your vet would give antibiotics for stasis...I would be considering ringing your vet and asking for pain relief immediately. A bunny with tummy pain will not eat.

Vegan_Bunny said:

It sounds like he is in a lot of pain. Hunching up, grinding their teeth (the clicking sound) and also drinking a lot is a sign of severe pain/discomfort. I'm not sure why your vet would give antibiotics for stasis...I would be considering ringing your vet and asking for pain relief immediately. A bunny with tummy pain will not eat.

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vegan bunny it sounds to me like it's not a bunny savvy vet, some vets give anti biotics as routine in case its a a bacterial illlness of some sort, ive seen vets just given antibiotics when they dont know what the problem is and they hope it will do something, i think this lady needs to find another vet asap.

How is he this morning?

Update

Thanks for all the advise. Stressful night last night. He didn't look good at all. Lay on my lap having his tummy rubbed for ages, he normally hates it being touched. Kept trying to get him to run around again. Every possible food stuff was lined up for him to try.
Midnight he took about quarter of a carrot slice.
5am he had some mint the a substantial amount of parsley (me picking it in the middle of the night)
7am we had lots of poos.
10am back at the vets for a checkup and more gut stimuant.
Now he is back to normal thanks goodness
Appreciate the suggestions it all helped.

Lisa & Amos said:

Thanks for all the advise. Stressful night last night. He didn't look good at all. Lay on my lap having his tummy rubbed for ages, he normally hates it being touched. Kept trying to get him to run around again. Every possible food stuff was lined up for him to try.
Midnight he took about quarter of a carrot slice.
5am he had some mint the a substantial amount of parsley (me picking it in the middle of the night)
7am we had lots of poos.
10am back at the vets for a checkup and more gut stimuant.
Now he is back to normal thanks goodness
Appreciate the suggestions it all helped.

Click to expand...

I'm so happy he is ok

Your emergency vet doesn't sound very rabbit savvy as Gothymama mentioned. I do not know if your usual vet is good but if not I would suggest looking for a better vet. The gut stimulants was good but he really should have had some pain relief...this is essential for a bun in stasis. Antibiotics should not be given to a bun with a poorly tummy unless it is an infection, anti biotics will only make things worse and can even cause the bun to become immune to the antibiotics so that if he ever needed them, they would be ineffective. As Gothymama said, "bad vets" give antibiotics whenever they don't know what's wrong with a bun.