Zeb - question about not eating or going to the loo

Just had Gail ring me now Zeb has seen the vet.

This morning before she took Zeb to the vets she went to retrieve his blanket from the corner of the living room and found bits of the coating of a trivial pursuit board under the blanket.

Zeb is known for his love of chewing - he shreds newspaper and his cardboard house and Frida likes to have a dig about in that corner of the room too. Alarm bells are now ringing.

Rebecca thinks that they have both eaten some of the top of the board (its the black outer cover which is a kind of cardboardy-hessian type material). This would explain the emergency with Frida as it caused almost a complete blockage. Zeb isnt quite so bad but there is some blockage there - he's had some injections and has to return tomorrow.

Am kicking myself now - i knew that they were shredding the paper that i put in the corner for them but didnt realise they were eating the stuff from the top of the board. I always pride myself on being a good owner but something as obvious at that??? Am really angry with myself as we almost lost Frida.

Glad that i know whats caused it all though. Thankfully the others arent really chewers and their bowel movements and appetites remain the same.

If anyone out there has got large amounts of cardboard or stuff like this accesible to their bunnies - even if you think they are not being chewed - i urge you to move them.

Its been such a worrying weekend for me & gail and it could have been so easily avoided.

another question for anyone in the know

Zeb eats his cardboard house from the cardboardguy - he loves it - but it is totally safe for him??

It is good that you know what has caused them to be poorly - you really shouldn't be hard on yourself though! we can't wrap our bunnies in cotton wool, and accidents will always happen with even the best of carers... thanks for the warning though, I will go and check Scipio and Aemilia's area now - they are hooligans too! :roll:

Sorry to hear your plight. Hopefully the buns will get over their experience shortly and will make a 100% recovery. As you say at least you know what the cause was and what you can do about this to prevent further problems in the future.

Small amounts for many buns possibly may do no harm, however ones who are susceptible to problems are more at risk, whilst it just may be the plasticised topping of the glue in the hessian backing which has caused the problem. What ever it is, it is a reminder to us all to be careful.

Hopefully others can avoid similiar problems from your experience.

sarahbarnsley said:

another question for anyone in the know

Zeb eats his cardboard house from the cardboardguy - he loves it - but it is totally safe for him??

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I'd be interested to know this too, as Charlie tears his to shreds :shock: He seems to leave most bits for me to pick up :wink: , but I'm sure he must eat some :?

Audrey loves cardboard- she properly eats it not shredding it :? Its only like normal carboard from cat food boxes etc but maybe I shouldn'y let her have it?

Hope they are both doing ok now

Sorry about the problems you've been having Sarah. I hope things will be okay now.

I've posted a couple of times previously on this subject, as this is something I now feel quite passionate about.

To cut a long story short, Rosie used to eat cardboard, she had GI stasis problems a few times, and has now (touch wood) been fine since we removed it from her.

She used to chew (and eat) any cardboard which was accessible - from the Carefresh in her tray, to the tubes we stuffed with hay - even the cardboard box she used to hide in. We didn't realise she consumed so much of it and I felt so bad when our vet suggested it was maybe the cause of her stasis problems.

We removed it all from her and now just use hay in her tray as I don't want to use anything else in there at all. It's fine if it's changed regularly, and I wouldn't dream of using anything else now.

So - if you are having problems with buns who you think may be eating cardboard, I would definitely remove it. If your buns eat some and are fine with it - great; but if you have doubts, then I'd say remove it altogether.

Hope that helps.

My two absolutely adore the boxes that Avon comes in - they go mad for them! Any other sort of cardboard they're not that fussed about, but they really love the Avox boxes! :lol: Fortunately they don't have them very often so I've never had a problem with mine. I have wondered whether I shouldn't let them cardboard to play with though. :?

all of mine have cardboardguy houses and they all chew them but this is the first problem i've ever had - obviously the stuff from the trivial pursuit board is harder to shift

i've decided to leave the houses in for bracken, gus and lola. not sure whether i'll take fridas off her - as long as theres nothing in the corner of the living room for her run time i dont think she'll be in danger

zebs a different matter - he is obsessed with eating cardboard, yellow pages, absolutely everything. so no more newspaper or anything like that for him and i'll probably get him a new dog cage and cover this for a hidey-hole instead of a cardboard house. he wont entertain seagrass stuff etc but i'll persevere.

gail says he was very upset when she took him home but she's left him in our room so he's got lots of space to run around. she's going to check up on him at 1pm. the vet said he had fluid in his stomach and wasnt as bad as frida was this weekend - she believes that the stuff he's had today will shift it and he's going back in the morning. in the meantime, she's suggested syringing water to keep him hydrated and i'm off to buy all his favourite foods now as frida ate them all this weekend once she got her appetite back

what a traumatic weekend. now if i could just shift this awful cough i would be happy. might have to eat some more medicinal chocolate now :lol:

I'm defiently going to remove all cardboard for Audrey now then.

hope they are both ok x

Hi Sarah! Glad both Zeb and Frida are recovering. On the subject of medicinal choccie, I think I've put on about half a stone in the last few weeks, due to the stress of my bunnies! Still love them, though! Claire x

well Zeb has just bit Gail when she tried to syringe some water into him - he obviously feels unwell but still has some spark in him.

still no sign of poo since the 3 this morning and he's not eaten anything since this morning

i've got some nice herbs for him and will try him as soon as i get home, hopefully he will have a bit of an appetite by then.

for those of you who have experience of this kind of thing - what was the longest your bunny went without pooing? and the longest they went without any significant amount of food? as the last big meal zeb ate was on saturday night and that was the last time he did any significant amount of poo.

thanks

sarah.

when willow wasnt eating recently the only thing he would eat was fresh dandelion leaves, he went probably about 20 hours or so without pooing