:wave: Hi loobers25
(I agree that the patch on the neck looks like a reaction to immunisation or even another type of injection.)
1st Many of us know how incredibly stressful it is for the carer to have a stasis prone rabbit.
Have you looked at a sticky on RU diet? "Diet for stasis prone rabbits"? It will give you a range of totally different diagnoses helped by diet, & some idea of the preferred forage, which can change over time.
Sometimes it can take a very long time to understand why a rabbit is stasis prone even with care from top exotics vets, but the frequency & severity of stasis can be reduced.
The idea is to increase the fibre content of the diet to stimulate maximum GI motility, so the rabbit is more able to withstand minor dips in motility which would have previously caused stasis.
To add to the thread -
Donampt's Alvin - the rabbit with "attitude" was an incredibly gas prone rabbit. She noticed that just before stasis, he drank less water & could avert full stasis with a combination of diet & syringe feeding him water at the 1st sign he was deteriorating.The final diagnosis was that he was deaf!! Not so easy to detect, because rabbits can sense so much from vibration through the floor. Eventually realised when he did not respond to a very loud noise in the air & nothing hit the ground! (smaller "bitty poops" can sometimes be an indicator of dehydration.
Loss of a partner rabbit can make the survivor feel very insecure from predators depending on their basic temperament when a major sense is compromised - stress - but they may not appear to be nervous from our viewpoint.
It can be helped by giving them "rabbit runs" access behind furniture eg move the sofa away from the wall. Distance should be just greater than the span of his whiskers -(The way rabbits know they have a free run & won't get stuck)
They also like "hidey holes" a place where they can see/feel what is going on with multiple exits, from an enclosed place (material is good because they can "nose it up" to do a runner to the next space).
By & large rabbits feel vulnerable in an open space without plenty of protective company which can be us. They can hear the predatory "night life" - cats or urban foxes through locked double glazing!
Pretty Lupin's Nino was another bloat prone rabbit. Final diagnosis - congenital deformity of shoulders - painful - but there was no indication whatsoever of any problems hopping - he was highly mobile. It was detected by chance on X-R
The partner rabbit - Poppy - was another bloat rabbit with severe behaviour disorder which even defied Anne MacBride!! When Nino passed, (from heart attack - not bloat) Poppy stopped getting bloat - she was a rare rabbit who preferred no partner, but there were no indictions of poor bonding.
Both rabbits were on a pellet free diet - hay & forage, but the hay was meadow hay with a good range of different grasses & plants (Some farmers sell it in bags) i know several dysbiosis prone rabbits only controlled by a pellet free diet.
Outdoor rabbits definately don't need any pellets. There is difference of opinion about whether indoor rabbits can get sufficient vit D3 without exposure to direct sunlight. Vit D3 can be stored so a sunny patch through open windows in summer can provide enough exposureto UVB
Plenty of excercise - a good run round is also a great help for GI motility especially for bloat prone rabbits. It sounds tough on them, but can avert fully developed bloat.
My personal experience is that many stasis prone rabbits do indeed prefer forage which helps them. I could tell more about Thumper's GI state by what he chose to eat than waiting for the poop to appear! I have no idea of herbal medicine. I'd see what Thumper preferred - look up the medicinal properties of that plant & try to work it out. eg willow leaves & small twigs have NSAI in them - rabbit may be going for pain relief if willow leaves are preferred.
Small twigs won't gve any problems with blockage at all. ( a log may do so because of the dense fibrous layer under the bark)
Fresh forage is best because of the high water content. (Wild rabbits don't drink water relying on fresh plants, roots, & live twigs, perhaps dew, for all their requirements) When GI motility slows down (less through put) our rabbits will cut back on water in preference to fibre needed to maintain GI motility - hence Alvin's problem.
None of us can do all of this all the time. Even fresh foragers have to rely on dried forage to get through winter!!
We are very restricted in rented accommodation. We can only do our best.
i hope this essay gives you a few ideas to work on. Some not possible in your situation. Some won't help. But perhaps they open a few doors for you to adapt to your own situation.
ps Dill is also a great help with gas. The leaves aren't supposed to help but I find that they can. Dill seed is the active ingredient in gripe water & normalises gut contractions (stops painful contractions (colick). Infacol breaks up foam.
(The problem with gas in the gut is that it makes a foam of bubbles which can't be propelled forward. Maybe a combination of infacol & gripe water would be more effective than either alone???