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Dental recovery & not drinking + less eating than before

C

christd91

New Kit
Hi all,

Just signed up here to get some advice before a potential second vet visit for my poor 1 year old mini lop! Basically he wasn't eating as much nor drinking as much as he used to and I eventually took him to the vets last Friday. They said he is healthy and gut seemed to be moving and a good weight (2.6kg) but his back teeth had been worn down in a weird manner and will need to be filed down.

The vets gave me some metacam for pain relief and also some stuff to help the gut moving to take as a precautionary measure if GI stasis sets in over the weeekend.. Anyway on Monday he went in to get his teeth filed down and was told to keep giving him the metacam and gut drugs for the next 5 days or so as well as syringe feed him some pellet and water mixture for the next 12 hours. We got him back at 5pm on the Monday and the vets discharged him even though he hadn't pood yet mainly because she said all we would do overnight is what you would do as you're a good bunny owner (made me feel good haha).

The issue we are having is that he seems to eat hay and greens fine (still not as much as he used to eat though and is a bit picky) but he isn't drinking any water from his bowl still. I've done the pinch test and he doesn't seem dehydrated. We have been giving him ground down pellets with water for the past 2 days and more greens (because he wasn't eating much hay and trying to keep his gut moving) so is it possible he is just getting enough water from his veggies etc at the moment? He has been passing poo since his surgery fine although they are smaller than normal and he is peeing in his litter tray too.

I tried putting his bowl by his head and he just tried to nudge it away (lol) but I gave him the bottle and he started licking from it?! I then syrgine fed him water from the side of his mouth and he seemed to be loving it (he loves the metacam from the syringe too).

At the moment I've now added the bottle near his bed to see if he drinks from that instead. He's always drank from a bowl so not sure why he suddenly preferes a bottle?! He has a bowl of water in the bedroom and a bowl and bottle near his litter tray/bed in the hallway now.

I'm tempted to phone the vets up tomorrow and see if they can maybe do another check on him. I mean they found out on Friday his teeth were weird and that was without sedation, and then they filed the teeth down with sedation so surely they would have seen on Monday if there were any other issues? The only thing I can think of is that he has a bit of jaw ache from perhaps having to chew differently due to his teeth not being level and so now that they are it feels weird and so he isn't eating as much yet?! Doesn't explain why he won't drink water from his bowl though.

Really sorry for the long post, thought it would be best to get as much info in the original post!

Cheers,
Chris
 
Hello

I think the lack of drinking will be due to the increased amount of fluids in the greens and the watered down pellets. He just does not feel thirsty. As long as he is eating pooing and weeing OK and bright and active I would not be overly concerned. You could always call the Vet to obtain their advice and reassurance.
 
InspectorMorse said:
Hello

I think the lack of drinking will be due to the increased amount of fluids in the greens and the watered down pellets. He just does not feel thirsty. As long as he is eating pooing and weeing OK and bright and active I would not be overly concerned. You could always call the Vet to obtain their advice and reassurance.
Click to expand...

Thanks, that's what I'm hoping. I'll see how he is getting on over the next few days first then and see if he starts eating more hay and drinking voluntarily. :)
 
I'm sure he'll be fully recovered soon. I agree with IM's post. Its possible also his mouth is a little sore from the contraption they use to keep his jaw open whilst working on him, maybe the sippy bottle is easier to use. I hope he's back to full force soon. Of course there is nothing wrong in calling your vet if you are still worried in a day or 2.
 
It sounds like your Bunny is doing well. Make sure he eats lots of hay so he hopefully won't need another dental.
 
Good work getting him to the vet before he got gi stasis.
As others said he may not require more fluids . Syringing fluids , wet greens would be best if he does begin to dehydrate in the future, yet sometimes I given fluids at home sub q -under the skin- using bags of fluids/set-up or syringe from the vet.
 
Thanks for the replies all. He is drinking now which is great and does seem much more himself. He still isn't eating much hay (its been 7 days since his dental procedure) but will eat loads of greens and some nuggets. I'm concerned he isn't putting on weight and his poos are still quite small, so I might just get the vets to do a quick health check weigh him. Might just be taking longer than normal or still jave a sore jaw maybe.
 
christd91 said:
Thanks for the replies all. He is drinking now which is great and does seem much more himself. He still isn't eating much hay (its been 7 days since his dental procedure) but will eat loads of greens and some nuggets. I'm concerned he isn't putting on weight and his poos are still quite small, so I might just get the vets to do a quick health check weigh him. Might just be taking longer than normal or still jave a sore jaw maybe.
Click to expand...

If he is not eating hay his poo will be small. Have you tried him with a variety of hays ? What about fresh grass ? That is as good as hay. This site offers a wide variety of hays

https://www.thehayexperts.co.uk/edibles/by-category/hay-grasses.html
 
I'd suggest to slowly reduce the number of veg and syring feeding to encourage hay eating as its possible he's having his fill from the extra veg etc.

Also there's no harm in trying other types of hay to see if something different would tempt him. Ensure its all easy to access at the moment and have it in extra places to encourage him.

Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk
 
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