When I started the morning routine last Friday morning, I realized that our rabbit, Maizie, had not eaten his pellets or parsley during the night. Not a good sign for a rabbit that normally grabs green veggies out of your hands. I then noticed that there was not any poop lying around or the normal spray all over the kitchen floor. I usually start my day by cleaning up rabbit pee, so that should have been my first sign that something was wrong. Luckily my husband was home on Spring Break, so I sent him and the little babe on an emergency run to the grocery store. Yep, not to the veterinarian, but to the canned fruit aisle.
I suspected that Maizie had wool block. Just like cats, rabbits ingest hair when they clean themselves. Unlike cats, rabbits cannot vomit and so if their digestive system is slow, normally from a lack of fiber, the hair/wool can build up in their stomach and they die very quickly. Maizie is a very odd rabbit in the fact that he does not eat hay. Almost anyone would tell you that this is impossible - rabbits HAVE to eat hay because they need the fiber. However, Maizie chose to stop eating hay about 1 1/2 years ago and has survived without any problems. Because I know that he has a lack of fiber in his diet, I was pretty sure that wool block was the problem. In the past, we have given him pineapple juice when he has stopped eating. The enzymes in the pineapple juice help to speed up the digestive system and move the hair out.
So my husband and little babe came back with two cans of pineapple tidbits (one can for the little babe - she loves pineapple). My husband held Maizie in a towel on his lap while I used a small syringe to feed him some juice. If you can get the syringe behind their front teeth, they'll drink it pretty readily. I also tried putting some pineapple chunks in his bowl, but he wasn't interested. Within an hour, he had pooped pellets that contained a lot of hair in them and he also peed. He continued to poop small pellets throughout the day (small from the lack of fiber). We dosed him with juice again in the evening and I saw him drinking water and eating some food. By the next morning, he was chasing the cat around like normal. Maizie is about 5-6 years old now, which is pretty good for an unneutered male rabbit that does not eat hay and occasionally eats dry cat food.
Our last adventure with Maizie involved his dewclaw.
I shared this post on The Self Sufficient HomeAcre for the HomeAcre Hop.