Navaho Gunleg

Last night, at about 22h, we had a scare, again: one of our rabbits wouldn’t eat. Having a history of ‘gastronomic’ problems, we always keep an eye on this lil’ fella and noticed that he couldn’t lie down comfortable — twisting and turning, not being able to find a comfy position.

And it really hurts to see a little critter in pain… You see, sometimes, for a yet unknown reason (most likely his hairs though), his intestines somehow get blocked so, well, he is unable to ‘take a dump’… And because that hurts, he doesn’t feel like eating… And because he doesn’t feel like eating and feeling generally shitty, he finally ends up lying down in his litter box — something he usually doesn’t do.

So if that happens, we know it’s that time again and we have to give him some special care.

This not being the first time, we do have a pain-killer and some stuff called Prepulsid, which ought to help him process the blockage, in our medicine-cabinet. The last time we saw it coming, we could react pretty quick and were able to medicate him before things escalated, but last night, we didn’t see it coming. Trying to force a rabbit some medicition with a little plastic syringe didn’t really work out either — it only stressed the little animal even more. So he ended up scared and behind a couch.

We could do nothing else but call the vet and, not having a car anymore, had to depend on a friend to take us. I really hate to have to ask other people for a favour, especially when you call ‘m to find out you’ve woken them up because they went to bed early… Woops.

The vet checked him out and was able to administer necessary medication. Maybe I ought to get the painkiller he uses and a syringe to inject the stuff in stead of administering it orally. See, I had to do that to one of our cats before so I know that, apart from the adrenaline-rush, it is less of a hassle than trying to get an animal — that doesn’t want to eat — to eat something…

We were back home at about 23h, but as usual, didn’t go to bed until 1h30 because we wanted to see our beloved animal eating something. In the end, that didn’t happen and I was like, thinking it may be best to leave him alone for a while as he might just be irritated by us. This morning when I woke up, I quickly jumped out of bed to check on the little animal to see he ate all the greens and stuff we had put there the night before. If you got pets and you’ve bonded fairly well with them, you know that was a pretty relieving sight. I may sound like a pussy but I really love that furry little rabbit.

For the moment things seem to be looking out pretty good; he’s acting his usual self again so that’s cool.

Why is eating so important?
The reason it is so important that rabbits eat, and why we’re on our toes when it happens, is because they have this unique digestion system not many people are aware of. Some people may perhaps know that, just like Microsoft employees using Microsoft products, rabbits are coprophagic, meaning that they eat their own shit. (Yeah, that’s a cheap shot but it made me chuckle, OK?)

Also, a rabbit has evolved to be able to live in harsh environments, all the fur he ‘licks’ up when he cleans himself, he eats, not wasting anything. (In female rabbits, after ovulating, even the unfertilised egg will be assimilated by the body again if it hasn’t been used.)

The technology is pretty smart but obviously has its drawbacks, such as blockage caused by too much fur.

Another one of these drawbacks it that the digestive system requires it to be active, all the time. If it doesn’t get any food to process for 12 hours it’s critical and after 24 hours of having nothing to process, the digestion system could go into a total shut-down (’stasis’) and is hard to ‘jump-start’. This is a situation we don’t want to have, of course.

One of the things we’re trying is to give him some fresh pine-apple juice (it has to be fresh pine-apple, processed canned ones are no good) because the enzymes in it help break down the rabbit fur in his stomach — which should reduce any blockage caused by it. We’re not a 100% sure if that’s causing all the problems though, but it always seems to coincide with the period in which he’s shedding his fur… so it is definitely worth a shot (and the fellow loves the stuff, man, he won’t complain!).

We’ll see how it goes.