Anakin had another bout of GI Stasis

Right, to give you some background Anakin had his first bout of stasis at New Year which he thankfully recovered from albeit after an expensive trip to the emergency vets plus follow up at own vets.

Things were great until two weeks ago on a Sunday evening when I knew he was back in stasis, so after another expensive trip to the emergency vets (he's very good at timing his illnesses so mummy spends lots of money) he is again back to full health.

Now I've been wondering why all of a sudden Anakin started with stasis when my other rabbit, Obi Wan isn't affected. I made a connection last night and wanted to know if others have had the same problem.

Around November time I changed the rabbits bedding from wood shavings to carefresh and I noticed last night that Anakin eats it :shock:

Do you think that the two are connected? Either way I'm going back to wood shavings as I used this for the first year I had them with no problem.

Thanks

Eating the bedding does sound a possibility.

Just a word of caution: woodshavings aren't really recommended as bedding for rabbits. You might be better using newspaper and hay.

The problem with newspaper is he eats that too ! (He's a naughty little bun) :lol:

I moved from wood savings to care fresh after reading that wood shavings weren't great.

If anyone has any other recommendation that would be great ( they are indoor rabbits with a hutch and run attached)

Clare7645 said:

The problem with newspaper is he eats that too ! (He's a naughty little bun) :lol:

I moved from wood savings to care fresh after reading that wood shavings weren't great.If anyone has any other recommendation that would be great ( they are indoor rabbits with a hutch and run attached)

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That wasn't very helpful of me, then was it. :roll: :lol:

A lot of people use Megazorb ..... but I don't know what that's made of (you'll probably tell me that carefresh is megazorb)

Megazorbs could be a potential as it wood based rather than paper. Thanks for the tip I'll definitely look into it.

All I can say is, it's a good job both are insured :lol:

Oh I'm so glad it's not just me - one of my buns is a bit stasis prone, but when I changed their litter from the pelleted-type to Tumblefresh, he had an episode every two weeks for three months! I then returned to the other pelleted-type in January and so far (fingers crossed)...I won't say it..but you know what I mean.

I am absolutely convinced it was the litter (I use Back2Nature litter now).

To be honest I can't believe I've only just put two and two together but hopefully if I stop using care fresh my trips to the vets will reduce (and my insurance premiums won't go up further :lol: )

Luckily, it only ever seems to take a couple of injections to get his gut moving again

Clare7645 said:

To be honest I can't believe I've only just put two and two together but hopefully if I stop using care fresh my trips to the vets will reduce (and my insurance premiums won't go up further :lol: )

Luckily, it only ever seems to take a couple of injections to get his gut moving again

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Aww, they are a worry aren't they?! It took me a while to figure it out! My Charlie was definitely eating a bit I think.

Anakin definitely is so very different from Obi Wan but they're worth it!

I only knew what was wrong with him the first time it happened after hovering round this site as a guest

Crikey it's a minefield isn't it! I always worry when I change something supposedly for the better. I got straw for my buns when I read that it was warmer than hay and they ended up with the runs real bad :shock:

Are they litter trained?

If so you'd probably be ok just to use woodshavings in the litter tray and cover with a thick layer of hay, it sounds like the lesser of two evils if they don't eat the woodshavings. They won't breathe in too much dust if it's covered with hay and it's better that then stasis.

Do they eat fleece? You could line a litter tray with that perhaps if not, cut up a really cheap one from Primark or Poundland into squares to line their wee corner and cover with hay and just dispose of the fleece at the end of the day.

Failing that, maybe just use hay in a litter tray and change it a lot...

Hesperus said:

Are they litter trained?

If so you'd probably be ok just to use woodshavings in the litter tray and cover with a thick layer of hay, it sounds like the lesser of two evils if they don't eat the woodshavings. They won't breathe in too much dust if it's covered with hay and it's better that then stasis.

Do they eat fleece? You could line a litter tray with that perhaps if not, cut up a really cheap one from Primark or Poundland into squares to line their wee corner and cover with hay and just dispose of the fleece at the end of the day.

Failing that, maybe just use hay in a litter tray and change it a lot...

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They are litter trained, they like to do their business in one particular corner. I've never tried fleece so could also be an option although Anakin is a chewer and I have to watch him with our living room rug all the time!

I tend to clean out their litter area every day so will probably use hay for the time being until I decide what to do more permanently.

Good luck, they may grow out of it a bit- Ludo used to try digging and chewing the carpet but fingers crossed he hasn't done it for ages!