hard to find advice on

Rabbits

Hay, gut stasis, dental problems and housing.

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RabbitsNate14d agoShow the setup. Litter box, flooring, all of it.Housing is the thing people get wrong first and there is no single right answer. What does yours look like now, and what changed from the first version? Flooring especially. That one seems to take everybody a few tries.0 repliesNo vet yet
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RabbitsPawsRx Team14d agoWhat hay does your rabbit actually eat, and where do you buy it?Rabbits are picky about hay and the brand that works seems to change every few months. Which one, and do you buy it locally or by the box? Also worth hearing if yours went off a hay they used to love.0 repliesNo vet yet
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RabbitsNate15d agoHay is not bedding. It is most of the diet, and the teeth depend on it.The pellet bag makes it look like pellets are the food and hay is a side dish. It's the other way around. Unlimited grass hay should be the large majority of what a rabbit eats, with a small measured amount of pellets and fresh greens on top. Timothy, orchard, meadow, brome, any grass hay is fine. Alfalfa is a legume rather than a grass and it runs too high in calcium and protein for an adult. It's right for babies under about six months and for a rabbit a vet has asked you to put weight on, otherwise treat it as a treat. Here's why this matters more than it sounds. Rabbit teeth never stop growing, and that includes the molars in the back, not just the obvious front ones. They stay the right length because of the long sideways grinding motion of chewing hay. Pellets get crushed with a short up and down chew and don't do the same work. Pull the hay and the molars develop sharp spurs that cut into the cheek and tongue, and now you're doing dental work under anesthesia on a repeating schedule for the rest of the rabbit's life. Signs you might already be there: dropping food out of the mouth, eating slower, going for only the soft stuff, damp fur under the chin from drooling, weight loss, and watery eyes, since the upper tooth roots can press on the tear duct. If your rabbit ignores hay it's usually one of a few fixable things. The hay is old and smells like nothing, so buy somewhere with real turnover and check that it smells green when you open it. Or there are just too many pellets on offer, so cut the pellets and hay gets a lot more interesting. Or it's sitting in a corner they never go to, so move it next to the litter box, because rabbits like to eat and go at the same time.0 repliesNo vet yet
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RabbitsPawsRx Team15d agoA rabbit that stops eating is an emergency, and the clock is about 12 hoursThis is the single most important thing to know if you have a rabbit, and it's the thing new owners find out too late. Rabbits are hindgut fermenters and the gut has to keep moving more or less constantly. When it slows or stops, which vets call GI stasis or ileus, gas and the wrong bacteria build up in the cecum, it gets extremely painful, and the whole thing feeds itself, because a rabbit in pain won't eat and not eating slows the gut further. The House Rabbit Society is blunt about the timeline and they're right to be. If your rabbit has stopped eating or stopped producing droppings for 12 hours or more, treat it as an emergency and get to a rabbit savvy vet. Left alone it can kill within a day or so after that. What you're watching for besides not eating: no poops at all, or suddenly tiny ones, sometimes strung together with fur. Sitting hunched and very still. Teeth grinding, which in a rabbit is a pain signal and not the contented purr people assume. Cold ears. A belly that feels hard or makes loud gurgling noises. Also worth saying out loud, rabbits can't vomit. Whatever goes in has to keep moving forward, which is a big part of why this goes bad so much faster than the same situation would in a dog. Two things to do now rather than then. Find the nearest vet who actually sees rabbits and save the number, because a lot of general practices don't and you'll burn real hours on the phone finding that out. And learn what your rabbit's normal litter box output looks like. That pile is your early warning system and it's free.0 repliesNo vet yet

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