Advice re: Gracie - stress and stopping eating

Hello,

I have had Gracie for about 4 months now.
I adopted her and bonded her with my 8.5 year old Oliver after I lost my bunny Libby.
Gracie had a difficult past and has made a lot of progress - her eating pattern has improved considerably, she is down to her target weight, she is very settled and happy and really naughty. Her diet is really good.

However, she has had several episodes of stopping eating.

The onset is very fast and usually she will have been eating well and producing normal poos shortly before.
It seems to be either in response to a stressor e.g. sudden noise, slight change, possibly moulting related or moderate pain related - possibly acid as her stomach can sound very gurgly.
If I am sure she is producing some poos, I normally medicate her with metoclopramide, ranitidine and Metacam and then syringe feed if she doesn't pick up in about an hour or two. I get her vet checked if no output or it persists, to check blood glucose, temperature etc
She gets very stressed with meds and syringe feeding so it is a bit of a vicious circle.
So far, it has usually resolved in about a day and on 2 occasions the vet has used a mild opiate (not Vetergesic) to calm her down which seems to have helped.
Her teeth have been checked and nothing obvious.


I am really worried as I am going on holiday soon and feel that Gracie could well have an episode.
I have thought about installing a camera in shed linked to my phone so I can alert someone if she has stopped eating straightaway.
I am also wondering whether there are any animal stress relief sprays that might help.
I will use fibreplex as a preventative.

Any thoughts would be appreciated,
Nicki

I think you are doing all the right things for Gracie has she had her teeth checked? One of my bunnies, Frosty, is a dental bunny and will without any prior symptoms stop eating, and it’s usually found that he has spurs on his teeth.

A camera is a good idea, I have one for the same reasons. With my current bunnies I prefer to have them cared for at home and for me to check on camera that they are ok too, rather than stress them out with moving them. If Gracie is a stressy bunny then I think leaving her in her familiar surroundings will be best. Do you have someone knowledgeable to care for them?

I have used a pet remedy plug in diffuser when I was bonding them, and when I moved them to the bunny room, I don’t know if it helped or not but it was a smooth bond in the main so maybe it did.

Moulting sometimes causes a gut slowdown in Frosty, to combat that and try to keep the spurs at bay I feed them lots of different hays, and also lots of apple sticks and they have a few fibafirst sticks too.

Thanks Zoobec,

She has had her teeth checked but I will get them checked again when I go back to the vet for my other bunny's vaccines.

They are being looked after in their home which will help so I can set up a camera in the shed. The person who is looking after them has looked after my bunnies for 10 years and is a vet's receptionist but I still think it is hard for other people to detect subtle behaviour changes - my husband checked on Gracie the other day and told me she was docile and enjoying a stroke when in fact she had stopped eating!!

I will do a bit of research on Amazon re: pet calming plugins but if anyone has had success with a particular one it would be good to know.


I do feed lots of different hays, plantain, dandelion and apple sticks too - I've tried FibaFirst sticks but she is not keen.

Gracie has been through a horrible time being shut in a small cage and treated badly - so it is hard to know what may be triggering her anxiety.

Thanks,
Nicki

Pet Remedy is quite popular, other than this it sounds like you are doing everything possible to make sure your bunnies keep well and safe while you are away.