Hi there!
My Fiancee and I have a harlequin mini lop he is a little over a year old and we adopted him in August. He spends part of the day in his cage and part running around our living room. We are going to Disney over Christmas break (my first time!) and were planning on having him stay with my parents.I am a little worried because our experience with him so far…
In October he ran into some gut stasis, a vet visit, 2 days off work and some medication later he seemed like he was back to himself. He had a couple of small issues that he got over fairly quickly (less than a day) and did not require a vet visit. Then, about 2.5 weeks ago we went away for one night, our neighbor was checking in on him and feeding him. She said he seemed happy on Friday night and then less interested Saturday morning. I went through the treatment for stasis when we got home (metacam, raglan and critical care) and he started eating and pooping again Sunday afternoon. However the next day he stopped eating and pooping again. Felt like he had a full belly and just generally wasn’t feeling great so I took him to the vet. (different vet, same practice) She ran the gambit and his X-ray showed that his GI system was full of gas, much worse than the first time. Put him on the same cycle of meds, with the addition of infant gas-x. Around midnight he started pooping again and has been back to normal since.
The second vet thinks we may have not weaned him fully off the meds and that he still may have had a bit of something going on, which was accentuated by stress or something that caused the gas build up this time.
We have not left him other than that night (just no reason to, my fiancee sometimes travels for work but since I’m a school teacher and also work Sundays I am usually homebound) and I worry about leaving him for a week. We brought him to my parents for a day on Thanksgiving and he did adjust to being there after a while, but we were there the whole time. I have two sisters that will give him attention, especially since they are both on break. His regular cage, towels and X-Pen are coming with us and he is staying in my youngest sister’s room. We are also bringing him a day early so we can be there and help him adjust.
I guess I just would like some opinions on if there is anything else I can do to make sure he is as least stressed as possible and stays healthy while we are away. We love our little guy and want to keep him doing well.