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Hungry rabbit won’t eat hay! 😡

Charvey

New Kit
Hi first post I’m desperate for help.

My rabbit had statis around 3 weeks ago and since then he’s been completely off hay, I’ve been trying different types, meadow and Timothy from HayBox and I’m now trying out shop ones but he’s just not interested.

I currently feed him critical care and some dual care pellets 3x daily and after work he has an hour or 2 hopping around the garden where he eats lots of grass and dandelions.
This evening I went to let him out and he was desperate to get out and eat despite having lots of hay in his hutch left untouched.

I saw the vet last week who said they were happy for him to continue on critical care until his appetite returns but he still doesn’t want hay.

He also became very skinny when he was unwell so I’m very concerned. Any ideas appreciated.
Thank you
 
Hi and welcome to the forum :wave:

Eating fresh grass is just as good as hay, but obviously he hasn't got access to that all day long.

Did the vet establish a cause for the stasis? Did the vet examine his teeth, as dental issues could be the reason for the symptoms you describe? Are his poos of a good size and colour?

Sending lots of vibes for your rabbit.
 
Hi thank you for replying, the vet did check his front teeth and said they were fine, they didn’t check the back ones though, how do they do that?

It was a bit typical that when he went to the vets and I was telling them he wasn’t interested in his hay he started eating the hay in his carrier. But it’s just a few wisps at a time compared to before the statis when he was a good hay eater.

I think I may have caused the statis by not changing his pellets gradually enough. He was given to me a few months ago eating cheap shop pellets that had no label so I tried to put him onto science selective as I thought it would be more nutritional.

I forgot to mention before that he also has emeprid daily following his statis. I began weaning him off but he immediately became bloated so I put him back on.

He does a variety of poos- normal golden, mostly a bit darker and softer at the moment and sometimes some big ovals.

The vets said there may be an issue causing him to be skinny and he is Charlie marked so I mentioned megacolon to the vets but they said it didn’t seem likely.

He does seem well in himself, it’s just the weight that I’m concerned about. And the not eating hay.
 
I'm glad he seems well in himself. Vets can use an otoscope to look at the back molars, but it's sometimes impossible to see them properly without an anaesthetic. Is he a lop? How old is your rabbit?

I think it's possible that, when changing over pellets, you didn't do it gradually enough. However, I'm somewhat doubtful of this as the issue is continuing in him refusing to eat hay.

There are forum members who have experience of megacolon. Is it possible for you to post a photo of the oval poos?

Have you got a record of how much weight he has lost?

Sorry for all the questions. It's better to provide a lot of details to enable advice to be given.

Lastly, is your vet rabbit savvy?
 
https://imgur.com/a/mwIlGj0
Here are some pics of him and his poos.
I’m not sure how old he is as he was given to me a few months ago as he was unwanted and He was 2.5 kg at that time and is now 2kg and quite bony.
I’ve been to the vets 6 and or 7 times now with his statis his vaccinations and Neutering and I’ve not seen the same vet twice. Some seem to know more than others. Maybe I need to change vets.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Whereabouts are you? I would say you need a visit to a good rabbit savvy vet. If he is still on critical care all this time later, your vet should be running further diagnostics as to what on earth is wrong with the poor little chap. This screams teeth to me. Very often, dental issues are not visible on a conscious examination. I would search with urgency for a good rabbit vet recommendation.
 
Thank you I think that’s what I need to do then, I’m in Wrexham, north wales. Is there a list of rabbit savvy vets somewhere on this site?
 
I’ve found a list now on the rabbit welfare site. It says the vets at pets at home are rabbit savvy so I’ll try there next. Thank you for all of your replies.
 
I'm a bit late to this thread, but I'm in agreement with a probable dental issue. I hope you manage to get your bunny to the rabbit savvy vet, who can then help him. Good luck, let us know how you get on.
 
Here's the poop picture, I tried to edit your post to display it, but I couldn't do it from my phone, so hope this helps :)
97f00ce1f87b5d82815606e151f34d54.jpg


Sent from my LYA-L09 using Tapatalk
 
Just to say, getting a rabbit savvy vet to look at him would be my plan too, I really hope you can work out the problem.

My male rabbit has megacolon, he produces poop like in your image, also darker splats (sorry best way I can describe them[emoji38])

Sent from my LYA-L09 using Tapatalk
 
Just to say, getting a rabbit savvy vet to look at him would be my plan too, I really hope you can work out the problem.

My male rabbit has megacolon, he produces poop like in your image, also darker splats (sorry best way I can describe them[emoji38])

Sent from my LYA-L09 using Tapatalk

Thanks for displaying pic and also for advice, Grace.
 
Thank you Graciee for making my pic work! This is my little finger in the pic to give an idea of the poo size. There are also some splats.

Out of interest do you have any problems keeping weight on your rabbit with megacolon?

When I’m in pets at home every other day buying him a different type of hay to try I always examine the poos from the rabbits there. 🤣My rabbits poos are definitely odd
 
I would think lack of input and barely any fibre will be causing the odd poos. I would try to get him into a savvy vets today if you can as if it’s dental, he’ll be in a lot of pain. I also have a megacolon bunny, she is the fattest of all of mine and her appetite has never once been affected. Not to say that will be the same for them all, but I would definitely want his teeth looking at under GA as a matter of urgency. Poor little thing x
 
Can you collect grass to put in his hutch with him? I have a public footpath near me and I often go over there to collect grass and wildplants for my guys.

Bailey has megacolon and does do poops like yours (actually, he does a variety of shapes and sizes). In his case I don't have trouble putting weight on him, he's actually overweight at the moment. It's not impossible that your guy has megacolon if he's always done poops like that but best to rule out other things as well, especially when it comes to teeth. Bailey recently started drinking more and his teeth were stepped under investigation so he went in for a dental- it turned out he'd fractured one of his back molars and needed it taken out. If the rest of his teeth had been pristine that would have been harder to figure out and might not have been found so urgently.
 
Thanks all, I took him to a rabbit it specialist, she looked in his mouth and said he had a couple of teeth that may be a bit sharp but from what she can see they shouldn’t be bad enough to cause this (unless he is very sensitive), she also mentioned that it could be bladder issues and also that he has some compaction in his gut possibly because he’s dehydrated.

She was keen to do full diagnostics with xrays of teeth and guts and bladder, blood tests etc but I saw the cost and sadly I just can’t afford it.
Naively I didn’t even think of getting insurance for him wheN I got him.

I may be able to get the dentals in a couple of weeks when I’m paid but I just can’t afford to get everything looked at.
I know it sounds awful, I just don’t know what to do at this stage.
 
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