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Bunny ate very long thread

22 9:46:12

Question
Dear dana,
I've recently bought a new cage for my rabbit, the door comes down in a slop and is made of plastic. The bunny fell down a couple of times because there is little friction. So my wife and I decided to tie timothy mats onto the door and this worked fine.
Yesterday early morning , when I wasn't home the bunny pulled the mat down ( she tugs at the door  when she wants to come out) and I'm sure she ate half of the long thread. The thread is those that you use to make friendship braclets , the package says it's stranded cotton so I'm assuming it's made entirely out of cotton. I believe she consumed about 20 inches of the thread. The thread is not a single thread , it is made out of six single thread rolled into one thread, so it's quite thick. For some reason I can't pla e the picture her but if you google DMC stranded cotton there will be pictures (those colorful threads)
I've since fed her tons of hay and water plus papaya tablets , how long do I have to keep an eye on her? It has been 10 hours since the incident and she still eating and drinking but she is having her cecotropes now so I can't really tell if her gut is fine.
If in the next 24 hours she completely fine, is she still in any danger? For instance can the thread be stuck in her
stomach and cause problems in the future?

Thank you I hope to gear from you soon

Answer
Dear Mike,

Fortunately, the strands were cotton.  The bunny's enzymes should be able to break them down eventually, though those DMC strands are quite tough.  Not the greatest situation, but much better than if the strand had been some type of synthetic.

It's impossible to say when the "safe time" has passed.  Keep an eye out for poops stuck together with the string, as it's not unlikely that she chewed it into little pieces before she swallowed it.  That would be much better than her swallowing the entire strand whole. :(

I'd say that if all is fine after a week, then the strand has probably been broken down and will gradually pass with her fecal pellets.  Keep up the tons of hay and plenty of oral hydration with wet greens to help push things through.

If this had been a synthetic string, it's possible it might never break down or pass, and it could stay in the stomach indefinitely, or it could pass into the intestine and cause major problems.  So at least it was cotton!

Hope all will be fine soon.

Dana