Rabbit Care in the Philippines 9 – Diarrhea Recovery, Food Consumption & Poop Size

If you read back entries 7 and 8 from https://www.facebook.com/groups/AdoptARabbitPH/files/, you will know that Ethan’s on the way to recovering from his diarrhea bout. For purposes of this discussion, I’m not talking about slightly wet poop or excess cecal. There was blot of liquid poop in his mat and apart from a series of semi formed poops.

However, after bringing him to the vet again for a post recovery check-up, my vet said there was no bacteria in his poop but did observe that Ethan looked even more emaciated than before. And so we do think he went hungry because he didn’t like the hay that was offered in generous amounts.

Since that learning episode, I’ve given Ethan a very solid variety of hay (Choppy Timothy, Oxbow Oat and Oxbow Alfalfa) apart from a pellet here and there. If you look at Ethan’s picture, you’ll see that he’s just a little bigger than my hand. How much hay does he eat now? (new rabbit owners take note). Must be around 7-8 fistful of hay for a day and I could still be under shooting that. Just make sure there’s plenty of hay in the rabbit tray 24 hours a day.

I should have expected though that there’d be a lot more poop if Ethan was eating right. To give you an idea of how much you should expect, this shot is for the night (8 hours estimate). Also take note of the size and color. These are really good samples. I kept congratulating Ethan on a job well done.

And so I am hopeful that even though Ethan still resembles a dinosaur skeleton, that he will develop into a chubby bunny in a few months.

So you want to get a rabbit 7 - A Baby Rabbit Diarrhea Emergency

I love weekend nights. With no work obligation, I can typically stay up the whole night to play with and care for my rabbits.  I was a little tired last night though coming from a company year-end party and so I was only able to check on my baby Ethan once last night at around 2 AM.  He was fine.  No outward signs of a problem.  The poop was not golden brown, but it was within the realm of normal.  

I stayed with the girls’ room for the rest of the night (Ethan, being new, is still in isolation).  When I was jolted awake by my body clock, it was past 6 AM.  Naturally my first instinct was to check on Ethan.  

I was shocked at the sight.  He was sleeping bent (not unusual for a rabbit, but it was for him).  I also saw splotches of wet poop throughout his cage.  I knew there was trouble.  When I tried carryng him, he had some convulsive actions but couldn’t stand.  

I woke Jean up and told her to run and prepare the glucose solution.  Within minutes, I held him in a trance position (I wouldn’t do this if it weren’t an emergency).  For the next 2 hours it seems, I kept trying to force feed him the glucose solution using a dropper but he hardly responded with a throat motion (i.e. didn’t seem like he was swalowing).  During that whole time, his breathing seemed really shallow and was not moving.  At some point, his head started shaking (like saying no) which seemed like a convulsive reaction too.  I just kept hoping.  

Jean also prepared an Oxbow critical care bowl, but first he needed to respond to the glucose. After a a while, I lay him down on my lap (with mats of course so he won’t fall).  I offered him a pellet.  Ever so slowly, he finally moved and tried to get it.  The next few minutes would be more hopeful as he kept responding to pellets.  I spooned some critical care to him, but he would only take a few.  In the next half hour, I would give him a pellet every few minutes until he could stand on his own.

After he did stand, he stayed on a pooping position (yeah you know what this looks like) for over an hour and must have pooped over a dozen nuggets.  Jean and I had breakfast separately so that he’ll have company.  Throughout that time, he stayed in place and was pooping.  The output?  Wet, but formed.

At that point, I figured the worst was over (at least for the day). He’s still here beside me.  It was harrowing experience even though we’ve been through that several times with Lily over the year.  

Postscript:

If you’ve not read my prior posts,  let me just say that I’m already extremely careful with my rabbits’ diet.  Still, things like this happen.  It’s very important to check on your rabbits (especially babies) at least every few hours.  In my case, in 4 short hours, my rabbit got sick and was no longer able to stand on his own.  We were fortunate this time around.  

I am also taking a risk and just straight shifting him from Oxbow Timothy to Choppy Timothy.  Yes, his poop was nice with Oxbow but he’s also been very picky.  And so it almost looks like he’s lost weight since I got him.  Choppy seems to be more palatable to rabbits.  It’s a risk because it’s a change in diet, but then again it’s Timothy to Timothy.  If this gets him stronger faster, then maybe it’s worth the risk. The adventure continues...

---

So You Want to Get A Rabbit 6 - The Hay Panic Buying Episode

As you may have seen in my prior posts, I now have 3 full-grown bunnies and one 4-month baby. This means that the supply and demand dynamics have changed.

In the past I would have like a 2-3 month supply of hay. However, that includes some cheap Star Grass Hay that I got from a local supplier that was not enjoyed by my bunnies. So I’ve thrown the whole lot out. They were starting to smell moldy anyway.

Because I also have a space situation at home and I don’t want hay getting old, I had to manage down the supply a bit to perhaps 1-2 months. Over the past few months, I’ve shifted some of my supplies from Choppy Timothy Hay to Chipsi Meadow Hay because I had some bad stock of the Choppy. The difference is that Choppy came in 750G containers while Chispi came in 5KG containers.

I apologize for the long intro. It’s relevant.

So here’s what happened. My last Chipsi Meadow Hay smelled bad. Yikes. All of a sudden, I’m 5KG down for supplies. It also turns out that I was out of Kaytee Timothy and just had one small bag of Oxbow Western Timothy. Ethan, being a baby has been eating purely the Western Timothy. I’m still letting his gut get used to small amounts of different hay. Even worse, I had three small bags of Oxbow Oat Hay, which for some reason my rabbits have been ignoring (weird, since they used to love Oat Hay, ableit with different packaging).

So here I was with 4 bunnies, a low supply of the staple hay. Easy. Just buy new stocks. Chipsi Meadow Hay is out of stock. I’ve asked 3 different suppliers. OMG.

I immediately called my regular Star Grass Hay supplier and ordered 6 KG (not the tasteless one from above). Now, by bunnies love this fragrant, shredded hay, but it also has some negative impact on the poop. Their poop becomes rather black and on the wet side. It leads me to think it’s too rich to be used as staple. To compare, using Timothy or Meadow (or even Verselle Laga Natural Hay (but they also don’t enjoy this too much)) as staple makes their poop big, golden brown and very nicely shaped.

Luckily, I was able to swap my wet-smelling unusable Meadow Hay from the supplier with 4 bags of Choppy Timothy Hay. So both deliveries happened yesterday. All in all, I received about 9 KG of hay yesterday. Even then I’m not very confident of my supply. My bunnies will mow through that in a few weeks. In the days leading to this, my supply situation became so tense that my wife was volunteering to fly to HK to get hay there. I sort of suspect her motives though. :-)

The whole point my fellow bunny lovers in the Philippines, the hay supply situation in our country is not very stable since we don’t seem to have a very developed rabbit market. The irony of this is that none of the pet stores carry hay. Oh you will find some once in a while, but usually not in good quality.

Here’s the lesson: 1) Have multiple hay suppliers; 2) Get your rabbits used to different staple hay while you have time (so that their tummy doesn’t have to adjust when you do change supplies); 3) Have at least 2 months worth of hay stored. If you love your rabbit, you’ll find that my tip makes sense. Have fun!