That's very interesting Jane, thank you. Food for thought, don't worry I'm sure everyone understands you are not recommending this but going on your own personal experience for YOUR rabbits.
I think there is an interesting point about a compromised immune system and over stimulating the immune system, not enough is still known about rabbits sadly. I certainly believe that overloading the immune system can lead to illness in susceptible humans, I am such a patient!, so why not other mammals? I think susceptibility/predisposition is also an important factor.
I
personally have my own theories on the rise of incidents of GI stasis, especially in house rabits. Firstly I believe that as we are all becoming aware of our rabbits and taking more interest in them as pets and being more vigilant, we are spotting illness that might have otherwise gone unnoticed. Rabbits can spontaneously, according to my vet, recover from GI stasis with no intervention at all in some cases - I have seen this myself when we got our first rescue bun, we didn't know that is what he had - now we know he had a pronounced associated bloat as well going on the symptoms he displayed then, and now, but he recovered all by himself the next day (he also had VHD limp and dental pain) but he got through it with no help at all poor thing
(I'd better clarify - he had that day seen a well known rabbit-vet who had given him Cylap and 'clipped' his teeth and missed his GI stasis
- we didn't deny him medical attention!!)
But I
personally believe that it could have something to do with
us by bringing them into our homes and making them our companions, and us theirs, we are enriching them socially and giving them hopefully more attentive and stimulating lives, however, they are prey animals first and foremost and as such are very sensitive to stress, our own emotional stresses - e.g.If I am tearful/upset Poppy's behaviour changes and she becomes difficult, she has wet her bedding on occasion before; physical and environmental change as stress such as noises, smells, strangers, furniture moving, routines upset; and most of all, I believe, separation stress from their companions - us, when we go away or out for the day. They don't understand that we are coming back again. This is just my
own observations but our male bun used to get stasis every time we went away for the wknd (which was rare) despite a trusted friend visiting atleast 3x a day and spending time with him. The day after we came back - bloat/stasis.
It happened too often for it to be coincidence in my mind. The day we got him Poppy as a neutered female companion he has never had 'separation' related GI stasis since!
He still gets it now and then for other reasons we can pinpoint - always with a stress factor involved.
