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Forum HOUSE RABBIT Q & A Dried diarrhea – what is wrong?

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    • Luna Rose
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        So I just got home from work two hours ago. I tried to give my bunny an inch of banana and she didn’t want it which was very strange. She always will eat it. She won’t always finish it and usually doesn’t but she will always eat most of it and be excited. She didn’t care about it. I picked her up and wondered what was wrong. Well I decided to look at her bum and a tons of dried poop on it. So I instantly gave her a bunch of gas relief baby medication. Then I tried to see if she would eat one of her favorite treats. She ate two but refused to eat more. Which was very unusual. She will always take more. And loves them.

        Anyway. I called the er vet and the closest one that takes bunnies and small animals is too far away for me to take a taxi. it’s like 45 mins away and that would cost me 110 dollars for a round trip. And I only have 150 on me. And then I have a check for 100 but cannot cash it til Monday. So there is no way I could afford that.
        I tried to see if a neighbor of mine could take me but she wasn’t home.

        The girl at the er vet told me a vet that is open tomorrow which is Sunday and I already knew about them but I tried calling them before and whenever I would try to take my bunny there for an emergency they told me they didn’t have anyone there to treat bunnies. But the lady at the er vet said that they are on their list of vets who take bunnies and stuff. So maybe it just depends on who is staffed. So I will call tomorrow.

        She has eaten some more. The thing is, after I went to knock on my neighbors door to ask them, I came back and saw she had pooped 6 normal pellet poops. So what is wrong? And should I still bring her tomorrow?

        I have to work tomorrow and Monday. Is it still an emergency be cause of the dried diarrhea? And becAuse she wasn’t and hasn’t really wanted much food? Even if I cannot get her in tomorrow, should I call out and keep an eye on her?

        Yesterday I changed her bedding and cleaned her cage. I always get natural carefresh bedding.. the brown paper one. Well for some reason it looked like a different cooler this time. And she never eats or. But this time she did twice. I swear she was eating it twice. So this has to be what’s going on.

        Should I go to the store tomorrow if I calm out and get some canned pumpkin?

        Just don’t want to call out for the wrong reason.

        Would you think it’s best to call out and keep an eye on her because she had diarrhea even though she has had normal poops since But is still not having a good appetite?


      • Luna Rose
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          Okay so apparently she does have her appetite. She has eaten more of those treats. They are just oxbow baked Timothy hay treats. She was showing excitement to eat then and eat all the three I gave her. Even came out of her cage to get them because she really wanted them.

          I am not sure what to do. She has pooped again and it was normal.

          I am worried and feel bad about if I go into work tomorrow. And worry that what if I go into work and then something bad happens. She will be alone for 9 and a half hours if I go into work.
          And then I worry about if I call into work. I only get five instances where I can call out in a year at work. I have been there for four months. I have already called out twice. Once was becAuse of her and an emergency with her. And then the other was becAuse I was really sick. What do I do? Should I call out?

          Of she has her appetite back but had diarrhea and her appetite was gone when I first got home… is this something that is still serious and I need to keep an eye on her tomorrow and stay home for safety? And then I need to bring her in Monday? She is already going Tuesday but does she need to get in tomorrow or Monday?

          Sorry for the anxiety


        • Bam
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            This sounds like a bout of gas/gut-slow-down. This happens to many bunnies and it’s of course sth you should deal with immediately, f ex by giving simethicone and enticing the bunny to eat and to move about some, since exercise helps get the gut moving. The outcome you want is what you have already seen in Luna: the bunny produces nice round poop an gets her appetite back.

            The dried diarrhea isn’t proper diarrhea but squashed cecals. If you can’t pick it out of the fur, you can give the bun a butt-bath with luke-warm water, but you must dry her well (but gently) after so she doesn’t get cold. Another method to get the stuck poop out is to use potato or corn starch, “massage” it into the dirty fur and then comb/brush it out.

            For the near future you should keep an eye so she eats and poops and is normally active. If she is, this is not a veterinary emergency. I think almost all bunny-owners have had to deal with a bout like this one time or another. It’s scary but if the bunny bounces back like Luna has, it’s not a huge deal.

            The next couple of days, you’ll have to check her rear for more sticky poop. If she keeps having it, sth is off and you should try and adjust her diet. Poopy butt is often caused by the bunny not eating enough rough fiber.


          • Luna Rose
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              Okay thank you verry much!!!!

              So this is not something I need to call out for? But I can if I want just to be safe? Sorry


            • Bam
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                Yes, you can of course call them, but there’s no need to do anything id she’s eating again, pooping well and acting normal. That’s what you want to accomplish with any treatment. Gas/gut slowdown is a symptom, not an illness in itself. When it becomes an emergency, you of course have to treat it as one, but you should always look for an underlying cause.

                It’s likely that this is caused by her dental issues. If a bunny has a teeth-problem it hurts when it chews rough food, and bunnies must have rough food in large quantities or their tummies suffer.


              • Luna Rose
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                  Okay thank you. I ended up going to work because she was pooping and eating and drinking.

                  However I noticed she isn’t eating her pellets. But it’s because she isn’t a fan of them anymore. Or maybe it’s hard to eat. So what do I do? She will eat other hard food like the oxbow Timothy hay treats and they are hard.

                  The poor thing. Bottom teeth.. well one tooth is completely gone so she just has one and then the top need to be clipped. The same with the peg teeth. Those are now going crooked. And taking her in Tuesday to have them clipped. I am going to bring her to the vet I told you about.. is that okay as long as I go to a different vet after? The only reason is because it will be cheaper for me at this vet. They are gonna sedate her to be able to clip hEr front and her peg teeth. I have to take a taxi there. If I go to a different vet I have been before it will cost double in taxi cost and then a little more I believe with trimming her teeth and sedation costs. Anyway sorry. I feel like a bad pet parent. But I will definitely not being her to him to have her back teeth ground down. No no.

                  Sorry for the anxiety.

                  Is there I way I can feed her her pellets? Because honestly she hasn’t eaten them since I cleaned her cage two nights ago. So that isn’t good. What do I do?

                  The food I get is from oxbow. I had also gotten food from smallpetselect but I read the ingredients weren’t the best so I saint want to give her it. But she loved those pellets so I thought I might as well use them up so I would mix half and half in her food bowl. I ran out of them a week ago. So maybe she is unhappy she doesn’t have them. Because she hasn’t eaten her oxbow pellets in two days I ordered the smallpetselect pellets tonight… 30 dollars for 10 pounds. Would have gotten 5 pounds but that was 20 dollars so might as well pay for the 10 pound. Today she has had at least 10 Timothy hay oxbow baked treats and has had Sunseed Vita Prima Sun Salad sprinkled on her hay and she ate that all up. She doesn’t eat hay though like a normal bunny so I out that on it and sprinkle a handful of alfalfa on it usually once a day or every two days. What can I do for her to make sure she eats enough?

                  If she was hungry, would she eat her pellets? Like if she were hungry enough? Like I said those Timothy treats are hard but the pellets are smaller than the treats so idk. Maybe she is just picky and doesn’t want the pellets anymore. Idk. What do I do?


                • Bam
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                    Bunny incisors shouldn’t be clipped but filed down. Here’s some info about how it should be done and how it shouldn’t: http://www.medirabbit.com/EN/Dental_diseases/Treatment/Clipping.htm (I know you are not planning to do anything yourself with her teeth, that’s just the cautionary headline of the article. It still has good info with pictures though.)
                    Hopefully your vet has done incisors before even if he hasn’t done molars. I can’t of course tell you if you should chance it with him or not, but I do agree it is important to save money since Luna will need it for her other procedures.

                    In order to get her to eat pellets you can soak them and make pellet-mash and serve it on a plate. If she won’t eat it “plain”, you can mix it with sth yummy like banana or canned pumpkin (unsweetened), or baby fruit puré. The most important thing for her is hay though, it keeps the tummy working. She has had a bit of sticky poop recently, and that often means the food she’s been eating is too rich, so if she won’t eat her pellets now but eats other things, she might not need pellets right now.

                    (You should never wait for bunnies to eat when they get hungry. You can do that with dogs, dogs only have to eat once a day or even less often, but bunnies have to have food in their GI tract all the time or the intestines can’t function. They don’t of course have to have pellets specifically in their stomach all the time, so if she eats hay and greens, pellets are of less importance.)

                    And again, it’s very obvious that you are not a bad pet parent.


                  • Luna Rose
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                      OkAy thank you.

                      I will read it. And I will make sure to call and ask them if he has done then before. What happens if you clip them instead? I am sure the link says why.

                      And I gave her an inch of banana already tonight and she ate it. Is it okay to give her more? She doesn’t like veggies. I keep trying to give them to her and she won’t eat them. I took the old bag of pet food of the food she likes from smallpetselect and there were a couple pellets left and then just dust from pellets having been in there. I poured it into the top of her oxbow pellets and tried to slightly mix it hoping that would make her eat them. I took her out and combed her and while I was, her tummy growled so she must be really hungry.

                      If you think I should I will go early to the store tomorrow and get her some baby food, and some pumpkin puree. I have to work at 11am. I am already planning on going to the store tomorrow night so is it okay to wait to get her those things til then or is that a bad idea? Just worried. From this morning to when I got back home from work it didn’t look like she has been pooping. I will put some more bedding her in cage to cover the current poops to see if she is still pooping.

                      And I will give her alfalfa hay too as hay is better than no hay as I said she doesn’t really eat much hay because she never learned how to as her previous owners had her since she was a baby and never gave it to her.

                      Also. Is it okay to give her a little more banana tonight?


                    • Luna Rose
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                        Yay the pellet thing is working. A he is eating some. Yay. Okay so she really must not like oxbow anymore……. lol


                      • Luna Rose
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                          She wouldn’t eat he pellet mash.

                          Should I syringe feed her it?

                          And she soon stopped eating the pellets and I believe just ate some of the pellets from her old food and called it good


                        • Bam
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                            If she doesn’t eat at all, I think you should syringe-feed her. She must eat and poop. She also needs fluids. You may have to syringe water too. Rabbits need rather a lot of water, but take care so she swallows, she mustn’t breathe in water. Is she eating anything? If she likes the new pellets, give her those. Give her whatever she eats, dietary requirements are less important than getting food into her.

                            These are two of the bad possible outcomes of clipping incisors:
                            Sharp edges, that can hurt the rabbit when eating or grooming;
                            Stress fracture or longitudinal cracks in the tooth, either in the visible part or under the gum line.


                          • Luna Rose
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                              Okay, I will go to the store in the morning and get pumpkin and baby food. She hasn’t been drinking as much. But is still drinking. Should I get Pedialyte?

                              I can mix water with the pumpkin and baby food

                              How much food do I syringe feed her at once? I will be gone for 9 and a half hours when I leave for work tomorrow so I hope that will be okay.

                              And yes she is eating but just not the pellets. I don’t have any more of those pellets she likes and ordered some but won’t get them til Wednesday unfortunately.
                              She ate a bunch of Timothy hay treats and then I put this stuff on top of her hay called Sunseed Vita Prima Sun Salad and it is basically a topper to put on top of hay. It has dried carrots, ground Timothy hay, dried parsley, carob beans, dehydrated celery – savoy cabbage – leeks, and dried red peppers, dried calendula flowers, and alfalfa. She eats that and likes it.

                              She is actually in her food bowl right now eating pellets. So that is good. Yay!!!!

                              Thank you bam. You are the best for being so helpful. I will make sure that they do not cut her incisors. If that’s what he does then I will go somewhere else. It will seriously make me mad if it turns out that he clips them.

                              Does this mean it’s bad to actually clip any animals teeth that has incisors?
                              Like.hamsters and stuff?

                              Thank you again.


                            • Bam
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                                If she eats, hold off on the syringing, syringing is stressful both for you and her. Some vets say to not give pedialyte to buns, but some people still do, I’ve never given it.
                                Pumpkin is actually healthy for buns, it has lots of good fiber and it’s low in calories, so if you can get that it’s great. It shouldn’t be pie-filling though, just plain unsweetened pumpkin.

                                I don’t know about hamsters. I think it’s only their incisors that grow all their lives so if you do sth wrong with the incisors it won’t affect the back teeth. But I’m not sure =/

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                            Forum HOUSE RABBIT Q & A Dried diarrhea – what is wrong?