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Would you be concerned? :o/

ripminnie

Wise Old Thumper
It's just Molly. I am sure there's something going on with her, but i'm not sure what it is. It's been going on for a while, not just since she went away to be bonded with Barney. In the morning, when i give her pellets, she never seems too keen - she eats a few, then goes off to try and find some paper/cardboard, as though she's trying to help something pass through before she has her breakfast. She then has a bit of hay, and a sit down, then will eat a few more pellets. This didn't used to matter when she was on her own, but now she's with Barney - if she doesn't eat her pellets straight away, she doesn't get a second chance because Barney gobbles them up! She just never seems very happy in the morning. AT teatime she eats her pellets fine, so it's not an issue with the pellets. :? When she lived in the lounge this didn't happen. BUT after moving upstairs, she consumed rather a lot of wallpaper and probably a bit of plaster too :( is there a chance some of this could be lodged somewhere and causing her problems? Even though she eats fine and poops fine most of the time? I;m just not sure what to do really :?
 
I recognise this all too well.
The paper & cardboard eating, are said to be a sign of poor caecal emptying. Your bunny is craving wood fibreto improve GI tract function. The trouble with paper & cardboard is that even if chewed well, they make a thick guey mass inside which is difficult to pass.

Thumper was just like this from the beginning until I noticed that whenever I moved his outdoor run he went to inordinate lengths to scoff every fallen apple leaf he could reach = wood fibre without probs!:D
When I started to give them, he'd eat the fallen leaves before he'd touch any other food. However he stopped eating paper & cardboard.

So my advice is to give shrub/tree leaves. Unfortunately most of them will have fallen by now up in Lancs, but they can be bought commercially.
In increasing "potency" according to Thumper - apple pear & fruit bushes eg fruiting currants / hawthorn / blackberry, or raspberry/ blackthorn. There's a good mix of blackberry, raspberry & strawberry available but this gets expensive. Blackberry (Brambles) should still be around to gather for free. I have to dry them & dethorn them for my bun:roll: I can almost bet that she'll "go for them" in preference to any treat. Maybe giver her her leaves before you put down the pellets.
Please let us know how you get on.
 
I recognise this all too well.
The paper & cardboard eating, are said to be a sign of poor caecal emptying. Your bunny is craving wood fibreto improve GI tract function. The trouble with paper & cardboard is that even if chewed well, they make a thick guey mass inside which is difficult to pass.

Thumper was just like this from the beginning until I noticed that whenever I moved his outdoor run he went to inordinate lengths to scoff every fallen apple leaf he could reach = wood fibre without probs!:D
When I started to give them, he'd eat the fallen leaves before he'd touch any other food. However he stopped eating paper & cardboard.

So my advice is to give shrub/tree leaves. Unfortunately most of them will have fallen by now up in Lancs, but they can be bought commercially.
In increasing "potency" according to Thumper - apple pear & fruit bushes eg fruiting currants / hawthorn / blackberry, or raspberry/ blackthorn. There's a good mix of blackberry, raspberry & strawberry available but this gets expensive. Blackberry (Brambles) should still be around to gather for free. I have to dry them & dethorn them for my bun:roll: I can almost bet that she'll "go for them" in preference to any treat. Maybe giver her her leaves before you put down the pellets.
Please let us know how you get on.

Frosty and Snowflake have always eaten newspaper and cardboard since I first had them. Not as much these days. I will be upping their bruit bush intake. Great.
 
I recognise this all too well.
The paper & cardboard eating, are said to be a sign of poor caecal emptying. Your bunny is craving wood fibreto improve GI tract function. The trouble with paper & cardboard is that even if chewed well, they make a thick guey mass inside which is difficult to pass.

Thumper was just like this from the beginning until I noticed that whenever I moved his outdoor run he went to inordinate lengths to scoff every fallen apple leaf he could reach = wood fibre without probs!:D
When I started to give them, he'd eat the fallen leaves before he'd touch any other food. However he stopped eating paper & cardboard.

So my advice is to give shrub/tree leaves. Unfortunately most of them will have fallen by now up in Lancs, but they can be bought commercially.
In increasing "potency" according to Thumper - apple pear & fruit bushes eg fruiting currants / hawthorn / blackberry, or raspberry/ blackthorn. There's a good mix of blackberry, raspberry & strawberry available but this gets expensive. Blackberry (Brambles) should still be around to gather for free. I have to dry them & dethorn them for my bun:roll: I can almost bet that she'll "go for them" in preference to any treat. Maybe giver her her leaves before you put down the pellets.
Please let us know how you get on.

Thanks Judy, that's awesome :thumb: I knew she was craving fibre but didn't know why. I have tried giving her raspberry leaves before but she wasn't interested; I do have some apple so i will try that. After that I don't know where i'll be able to get some from; I really don't have time for foraging, even if it was the right season :( I will keep you posted! :wave:
 
I'm really glad I've helped a couple of people today.:D
I completely forgot (my silly video like memmory) that twigs are just as good, & we're into the season of pruning fruit trees.
Benjie only eats the fine ones whole, cos he hasn't got the hang of bark stripping (I've shown him enough times with a knife, but the penny hasn't dropped he could do it himself :roll::lol:)
It's the same twigs as the leaves, expect hawthorn & blackthorn are a bit too thorney. Benjie likes weeping willow twigs too.
"Befriending" a tree surgeon is a good idea. I'm amazed by how many people are really helpful when I explain I need them for my poorly rabbit.
 
Ailsa does this! She used to eat all her food before she was bonded with Lewis, now she'll have a bit, hop off, come back, eat some more etc. Had me worried at first, but I just assume its just a little habit she's developed.
 
Ailsa does this! She used to eat all her food before she was bonded with Lewis, now she'll have a bit, hop off, come back, eat some more etc. Had me worried at first, but I just assume its just a little habit she's developed.
Yes both Benjie & Thumper snack on a poops out, food in, basis except for their afternoon rest period. Neither have ever eaten all their food at 1 sitting.
I'm certainly aware of this type of change in eating behaviour after bonding. I'm only concerned when 1 of the buns chin scents all the food available = "Reserved for ME only" which puts the partner bun off eating, can herald a fragile bond.

Ripminnie you may find this old thread about buns very prone to stasis interesting, because several of them ate lots of cardboard/paper before being given leaves.http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/s...ried-given-your-stasis-prone-buns-tree-leaves
I'll never forget Donnamt's Alvin eating 1/2 a cardboard box when coming out of stasis & Donnamt being convinced he was trying to commit suicide!:lol:
Graham L contributes to the thread his Biscuit has to drink so much with her renal failure, she hasn't enough room for fibre & went for the cardboard.

My Benjie (snuffles) was a terrible cardboard eater on arrival. His appetite can fluctuate a lot in common with many snuffles buns. He has psycholgical issues of being very fearful, but I suspect that snuffles buns can get severe headaches from blocked sinuses (like humans). I give tree leaves instead of hay to reduce the dust & help the snuffles, but as others have experienced, all cardboard eating stopped when I changed his diet.
 
She isn't interested in apple leaves either, tried that this morning! :( but she loved dried plantain/clover :?
 
She isn't interested in apple leaves either, tried that this morning! :( but she loved dried plantain/clover :?
Both plantains have excellent mixed fibre. The mucilage helps to lubricate the gut. They are good for vitamins, minerals & their medicinal properties are amazing.
I'd try a few different forages. Maybe try to grow some in your garden next year if you don't mind weeds!

I always forget that both Thumper & now Benjie (pasteurellosis) & very nervous, have obvious gut issues for different reasons. Benjie was a frightening cardboard eater until he got forage when he stopped.
It's a case of "going with the flow" the bunnies know what suits them best.;)
 
Both plantains have excellent mixed fibre. The mucilage helps to lubricate the gut. They are good for vitamins, minerals & their medicinal properties are amazing.
I'd try a few different forages. Maybe try to grow some in your garden next year if you don't mind weeds!

I always forget that both Thumper & now Benjie (pasteurellosis) & very nervous, have obvious gut issues for different reasons. Benjie was a frightening cardboard eater until he got forage when he stopped.
It's a case of "going with the flow" the bunnies know what suits them best.;)

Do you know why it is just a morning thing though? :? She is fine the rest of the day! And could her consumption of wallpaper etc have CAUSED her to become like this? As she was fine before :(
 
Mine love cardboard too, they have a box at the moment but don't let them have one all the time. Are black/redcurrent twigs and leaves as good? I have some of those in the garden?
 
Do you know why it is just a morning thing though? :? She is fine the rest of the day! And could her consumption of wallpaper etc have CAUSED her to become like this? As she was fine before :(

I can reassure you that her her consumption of wall paper would not have caused this.
It's a sign of a gastro intestinal tract which can slow down minimally, so bunny craves fibre to keep it moving.
As said before, the trouble is that the guey mass from the sizing in paper & cardboard can cause a blockage if something else happens to slow the gut down even more.

I don't know why they seek woody fibre. The main difference from hay/grass is that woody fibre is totally indigestable whereas the cellulose fibre in hay is partially digestable by the caecal bacteria.
Wildies eat a surprising amount of woody fibre, particularly young self seeded hawthorn & blackthorn saplings. When there was the 1st wave of myxo & drastic reduction of the rabbit population, a lot of moorland reverted to scrub. We don't know how much woody fibre they eat from tree roots underground. I've often seen them actually climb into bramble thickets in spring for the old bramble leaves, when the new grass is too rich for them.
I surmise that domestic rabbits do the best they can when natural additional wood fibre isn't available.

Of course Thumper was finally found to have extensive scarring throughout his gut from a form of TB never recorded in rabbits before - so you needn't worry about that :D

Benjie with his snuffles is a bag of nerves - stress causes gut slow down. Many owners of snuffle buns had noticed that they went off their feed from time to time, but Benjie was ridiculous. At 1st. he wouldn't come out from his hidey hole or under the bed to feed unless I was there, apart from a quick trip to the litter tray:shock:
At long last I realised he was too frightened to come out & put storage boxes of forage under the bed for him. Cardboard eating stopped, but started again in autumn.
He was spooking out but only at night at the slightest creak in the house with an occasional thump & his GI tract was showing obvious slow down. A fox had taken up residence under the garden shed & had made a path to my pond (3/4 way down the garden) to drink. I got the fox to move & dropped the water level in the pond. Benjie was fine again. I add that he's a house bun but rarely goes downstairs, & only if I'm there.

So why in the morning? I wonder whether the night life - cats or foxes are unsettling her fractionally. How good is their hearing? Thumper heard a cat digging a pooh hole 100' away through locked double glazing, gave a couple of warning thumps & rushed upstairs where he felt safe. He wasn't badly phased by predators as long as he could get upstairs. Of course Benjie's snuffles would impair their best warning system -smell, maybe contributing to his anxiety.
To try to make him feel more secure I made him an artifical warren complex round the bedroom. He uses it all the time. If you think she's anxious at night, a tube might help, or if she'll just chew it, you can get plastic pipe 6" from plumber's supply merchants.
Rabbits are fascinating creatures but it took me ages to even begin to see the world from their viewpoint & I still forget.:oops:
 
Mine love cardboard too, they have a box at the moment but don't let them have one all the time. Are black/redcurrent twigs and leaves as good? I have some of those in the garden?
Sorry we cross posted & I missed you. Yes, they're more than just as good - they're better for them. :thumb::D
 
Judy, thank you so much, your posts are always awesome! :wave:
Yes Molly has always been scared overnight, I thought she was just scared because she was alone and it's dark; her hearing isn't great at all :? So I don't know really. She does tend to thump around 5am every morning, even now that Barney is with her. But her worry overnight would certainly explain her lack of interest in food in the morning... And she lives upstairs, not down - she was actually much happier downstairs! Maybe because she saw more of me and my OH :?
 
Judy, thank you so much, your posts are always awesome! :wave:
Yes Molly has always been scared overnight, I thought she was just scared because she was alone and it's dark; her hearing isn't great at all :? So I don't know really. She does tend to thump around 5am every morning, even now that Barney is with her. But her worry overnight would certainly explain her lack of interest in food in the morning... And she lives upstairs, not down - she was actually much happier downstairs! Maybe because she saw more of me and my OH :?

I'm delighted that together we've found something to work on, to help Molly.
I'd say that thumping at the same time every night means that a predator is doing it's territorial rounds.
I suspect that as well as enjoying our company, our rabbits also see us as protectors. A partner rabbit can't protect them just warn them of danger.
Thumper liked to flop out underneath the chair I was sitting on whenever he could.
Benjie only ever flops out if I kneel on the floor propped up on my elbows, yep right up close beside me in the gap!

I've noticed that both of them seek safety in the nearest thing they can find to a burrow & so often it's far from safe. On the other hand we may know that they're perfectly safe, but they still feel panick stricken without the "security" of a hole. An ideal hidey hole is a box with 2 exits & the 3rd attached to some form of piping.
My bunny hidey hole looks quite unobstrusive like a blanket box at the foot of the bed with the pipe leading under. He liked the addition of the storage boxes (cardboard eek) with bunny curves in them so he can hop from 1 to the other. He'll spend hours rearranging them too.:lol:
I'm sure your O/H could knock together a box for Molly. I've got a feeling that it'll help her anxiety a lot.:D
 
I'm delighted that together we've found something to work on, to help Molly.
I'd say that thumping at the same time every night means that a predator is doing it's territorial rounds.
I suspect that as well as enjoying our company, our rabbits also see us as protectors. A partner rabbit can't protect them just warn them of danger.
Thumper liked to flop out underneath the chair I was sitting on whenever he could.
Benjie only ever flops out if I kneel on the floor propped up on my elbows, yep right up close beside me in the gap!

I've noticed that both of them seek safety in the nearest thing they can find to a burrow & so often it's far from safe. On the other hand we may know that they're perfectly safe, but they still feel panick stricken without the "security" of a hole. An ideal hidey hole is a box with 2 exits & the 3rd attached to some form of piping.
My bunny hidey hole looks quite unobstrusive like a blanket box at the foot of the bed with the pipe leading under. He liked the addition of the storage boxes (cardboard eek) with bunny curves in them so he can hop from 1 to the other. He'll spend hours rearranging them too.:lol:
I'm sure your O/H could knock together a box for Molly. I've got a feeling that it'll help her anxiety a lot.:D

She has always had a box, up until last week when bonding with Barney :? She always slept in it, but still did her thumping! I fully intend to give them a box to share soon, when i am sure that there are no territory issues going on :wave:
 
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