Little Appetite after Annual Booster Vaccination

Ambrer said:

Hi there, guys! I just wanted some advice on my rabbit, Chappy.

She just turned one this week and last Tuesday (16th August) She had her annual booster vaccinations. While having her vaccinations done, it turns out my poor girl is pretty overweight - she needs to loose a few hundred grams, that's for sure! (Been spoiling her, whoopsie!) So the vet recommended that she should be eating excel overweight bunny nuggets. I wanted to swap her to this brand of nugget anyway; so this is a good starting point! The vaccines were for both myxomatosis and RVHD.

I started to mix in her new nuggets (40g of the Pets At Home variety, 5g of the new nuggets) to her diet; and she was eating well for the first couple of days. Then, on the Thursday (18th) she suddenly went off her food - I did some research and apparently the vaccine can put them off their food for the first couple of days. She hasn't touched any nuggets since Thursday. Despite her being a little off her food; she was mostly herself - she got a little quiet for a day or so but now she's back to being her usual self!

I've been very closely monitoring her weight over the weekend - she's been holding steady. Over the weekend I managed to get her to have some veggies (pepper, cucumber and celery; she's a very...picky eater) as well as some hay. Hay was VERY surprising as for as long as I've had Chappy, she's NEVER touched hay or grass, she's been like that ever since the day I've brought her home. I had the vet check her teeth while doing the vaccine last week just in case, and her teeth are luckily absolutely fine. I've been making sure she's had plenty of chew sticks (main reason why she's a little...plump.) and chew toys to make sure her teeth stay a good length. Safe to say the vets had never heard of a rabbit who wouldn't eat hay; and I've tried several types of hay! I was going to try timothy hay next but I need to get her weight down first. She's just on plain meadow hay at the moment. It's a nice sight to see her nearly clearing the entire hay rack though; and experimenting the best way to eat hay!

I just wanted to ask if this was normal; and if so, when should she be perking back up? I'm a little worried about her since she usually downs the nuggets first; its very rare that she fails to clear the bowl! I was going to take her back to the vets if she hasn't improved by tomorrow evening. I've been watching her poo output very closely too to make sure that there was nothing wrong and all that is completely normal! Just a little worried as obviously it's the first time she's had the vaccine (the booster, anyway - she was absolutely fine when she had them last year!) so any advice would be welcomed!

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MightyMax said:

Hi there :wave:

You say she's back to her usual self so are you asking just about her eating? And have you made the changes to her dried food at the same time as she came back from having her vaccinations? It could be the vaccinations that have made her slower to eat, or it could've been the change over ..

Rabbits can be quiet after the vaccination. In fact some have odd side effects that can go on for weeks, but that's rare. It's certainly a good idea to check with your vet as they will (hopefully) have had side effects reported back to them.

As for teeth - a vet can only check roughly 60% of the cheek teeth (molars) by looking in with an otoscope, so if her not eating hay continues it maybe something to explore further.

Have you tried giving her freshly picked grass, or readigrass (freeze dried grass)? If she can eat those fine, then there's no reason she can't eat hay

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Ambrer said:

Hiya! Chappy is pretty much back to her usual self - apart from her eating!

I might ring the vet tomorrow morning and just ask about the side effects; I'm sure that will give me some piece of mind! I think I caught her having a look at nuggets earlier so knowing my luck...she'll probably have nibbled on some by tomorrow morning. Either that, or probably thrown them all around the hutch again! That's my Chappy for you.

I did originally do the diet change as she needs to go on a specialist diet for overweight bunnies - but I've only been putting in 5g of the new nuggets inside her bowl at a time to introduce her to it. The other 40g of nugget food is her usual nugget! Then again, Chappy is pretty sharp - she probably knows the difference. She was eating the mixture of the nuggets just fine in the first 24 hours after the injection, then stopped on Thursday - but she has been eating hay and veggies since, though it's not near her usual amount.

See, the problem is with grass - Chappy won't eat that, either! I try putting her out into her run a lot during the day, but she just finds a nice, sunny corner and lies down - she's not interested in grass! I've also tried offering her freshly picked grass but she won't touch it, either. The thing is, from the day I brought Chappy home - she has never touched any hay or grass! I brought it up with the vet and they've said that they haven't heard anything like it before. I've tried the method of only giving her minimum nuggets then only hay for the 24 hours - but she will literally sit there and refuse to eat again until more nuggets turn up! It's only after her injections that she's started to really go at hay - either way, it's not much.

Just really worried about her as her appetite has been a bit lower than usual since the vaccinations - She is eating hay (weirdly!) and some veggies, so I'm hoping everything is okay and I'm just being a little too paranoid! :lol:

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Ambrer said:

Happy to report that Chappy is back to her usual self today and once again eating the nuggets! Sadly; that means....no more hay eating. Darn. It was going well!

Anyone got any idea on what I should be feeding her to loose weight? She currently weights in at about 2.3kg; and apparently for her that is overweight - though she's a Californian and Lionheart mixed. But she's nearly too fat to clean herself! I'm currently giving her no more than 40g of nuggets per day along with hay - but I've also heard she should be getting half that?

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