Julie just choked again.

She was eating pellets and started gaging. Usually she comes to me and lets me pick her up and hold her nose down when she chokes but this time she ran away from me and was boxing at the air. Finally she coughed up a bunch of mucus with a tiny bit of finely chewed pellets then the mucus started shooting out of her nose. I held her nose first downward while the OH wiped the mucus away as she was drawing it back in through her nose. This was very scary but as soon as the mucus stopped, I listened to her and she sounded fine. She even ran off and tried to start gobbling again. I hand feed her each small pellet one at a time.
Why does she choke like this? I am baffled. The vet has no idea why. She thought her teeth were the cause of her choking and drooling but she had a dental and is still doing both. I really don't want her to eat her pellets any more.
I am going to call her vet in the morning to see if she has any other ideas. She does eat fast but the tiny bits of food if any that comes out is very finely chewed. She is still drooling when eating her greens also. I never see any drool when she eats pellets but when she chokes and bunch of mucus always comes out. Could she be drooling and swallowing it and it sometimes goes down the wrong way? Sorry about rambling ..it is just very upsetting.

How awful, poor Julie and poor you

I wonder if a course of abx might be in order. Not only to cover for aspiration pneumonia after the choke but also maybe there is a low grade chronic bacterial infection affecting her upper respiratory tract. Not 'bad' enough to cause obvious symptoms such as sneezing and a constantly snotty nose, but more that her sinuses are chronically inflamed and a build up of mucus eventually makes breathing whilst eating difficult. Rabbits being obligate nose breathers if her nose became very bunged up she may gasp air whilst scoffing her food in her usual Julie frenzied way :?

I know that with my chronic sinus issues I dont always have a runny nose, but every few weeks I will get a monumental clear out when I blow my nose. It's like my brains are coming out too :shock: Sorry, probably TMI there

Anyway,do let us know how Julie gets on at the Vets. After Hal's two awful chokes I no longer feed him pellets. He has a muesli mix and so far (touches wood) he has not choked on it (touches wood again)

None of my bunnies eat pellets and they've not had any nutrition problems. Sometimes the dangers in the feed are just not worth the risk.
Vibes for you and Julie and huge (((((((((((((hugs))))))))))))).

How scary Hope you can get some answers. Sending lots of vibes for Julie xx

Hope Julie is alright now and you manage to find out the cause.

I hope she is OK now, poor bun. They just try to woof them down so fast.

We had to change our pellets as Tinky would eat them so fast she would inhale them, we changed from Execl (small pellets) to SS.

Sending vibes for Julie. xxx

As all the other times before Julie shows no signs of having had choked. Her lungs are perfectly clear. The vet does not believe that she has any kind of respiratory or sinus infection. He thinks as her regular vet that she just eats too fast. Her normal vet is already on maturity leave. He said that my options are to either wet her pellets or not feed pellets and give her more greens such as cilantro/herbs but not any high in calcium.
The thing is she was crazy already this morning without her pellets so I had researched and found that a bunch of rabbits have choked on Oxbow pellets. (Timothy Oxbow pellets is the # 1 vet recommended pellet in the US) It was suggested to wet them so I had already done that and and she would not eat them. She kept running around them and smelling them. So he said to mix the wet pellets with this banana critical care that I was given.
I did this now and she ate some but not much.

I wanted to also mention that when I was researching rabbits choking on the Oxbow pellets there were so many plus I found one person that said that they believe that the rabbits choke on it because the Oxbow pellets expand with water and if they are eating too fast it tends to expand in their throat before they shallow them.
I believe this might be the case as I put her pellets in water and they very quickly absorbed all the water and expanded to a very large mass. Also the bits of pellets that have come out of her when choking that I thought was chewed up finely looks the same as the water soaked pellets. Isn't this interesting.
He does not recommend a muesli mix. I am not clear why though.
He will not give her an antibiotic but did give me the name of another vet who is supose to be as rabbit savvy as her normal vet. She is in their other office. I will call her if she chokes on anything again. Her normal vet also checked her for respiratory infections when she was there a few weeks ago and also would not give an antibiotic...said she thought she ate too fast and that the dental would help.

MimzMum said:

None of my bunnies eat pellets and they've not had any nutrition problems. Sometimes the dangers in the feed are just not worth the risk.
Vibes for you and Julie and huge (((((((((((((hugs))))))))))))).

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Just wondering....are any of your bunnies older rabbits and what do you feed other than hay?
After seeing how much the pellets actually expand if she ever eats them wet ( I will never feed them dry again) I will definitely cut back and not give her the 2 table spoons. That sure is a lot more food than I thought it was ....way more than the oats that I mix up with her alternative meds.

I wonder if I should mix the pellets with the turmeric and flax seed instead of the oatmeal and a tiny bit of Al fruit? The vet did say if the critical care mixed with the pellets didn't work that I could mix fruit juice.

Oh no hope she's OK.

hurricanhoney said:

Oh no hope she's OK.

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Health wise she seems fine now. She was really upset about not getting the dry pellets and has so far only eaten a little of the wet mixed with banana flavored critical care. I was going to mix the wet with the Al fruit because she was so crazy but decided to leave the kitchen and wait. She has since ate a bunch more hay than usual and seems to have calmed down. Maybe she will be fine on just hay and greens.

I USED TO HAVE A BEAUTIFUL BLACK BABY BUNNY AND SHE HAD THE EXACT SAME SYMPTOMS:SHE WOULD EAT HER PELLETS AND THEN START GAGGING,SHE STARTED BOXING HER SNOUT WITH HER PAWS AND ALOT OF MUCUS CAME OUT. I DECIDED TO WATCH HER AND TAKE HER TO THE VET IF SHE GOT WORSE AND A FEW DAYS LATER SHE PASSED! SHE DID NOT ACT WIERD OTHERWISE.
RIP CHLOE!

lovelybun said:

I USED TO HAVE A BEAUTIFUL BLACK BABY BUNNY AND SHE HAD THE EXACT SAME SYMPTOMS:SHE WOULD EAT HER PELLETS AND THEN START GAGGING,SHE STARTED BOXING HER SNOUT WITH HER PAWS AND ALOT OF MUCUS CAME OUT. I DECIDED TO WATCH HER AND TAKE HER TO THE VET IF SHE GOT WORSE AND A FEW DAYS LATER SHE PASSED! SHE DID NOT ACT WIERD OTHERWISE.
RIP CHLOE!

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I am so sorry about Chloe. I wonder if she aspirated the mucus into her lungs? This is always a big concern I have with Julie. She has been choking for over a year off and on. When the vets check her so far they say that her lungs are clear and they can't find a reason for her choking other than she inhales her food. Sometimes the vet is her vet and a couple of times she had to see an emergency vet. They thought at one point that it could be her teeth but she recently had a dental and never needed one when she first started choking.
Can I ask if Chloe was eating really fast and what kind of pellets was she eating?
RIP beautiful baby.

She was eating the longish pellet type. forgot what the brand was.
they sort of looked like this:

Those pellets sure look big. Julie's are teeny tiny. Seems like the rabbits who are choking on pellets are choking on all different types and sizes.