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My recently weaned bun... Bloat?

22 9:49:59

Question
So I have a three-four week old cottontail bun.
I received him june 10th, I believe he was 5-7 days old when I first got him
I fed him powdered KMR/goatsmilk/heavy whipping cream
He did fine on that, and is now 130grams and about 4 1/2 inches long
I wasn't able to acquire a scale until two weeks ago, and when I first weighed him he was only 50grams and barely 3 inches.
So he's grown quite a bit!

He's been on greens; clover, soft grasses, parsley and romaine lettuce. And the occasional banana here and there.
I already went through a cecotrope regimen with him to ensure his gut was ready to process greens. He's been eating the above listed greens for about a week
Only about three or four days ago I eliminated formula feedings, ( (I had been watering it down for about half a week at that point).

I saw that you had a lot of experience with house bunnies Cottontails seem to be about three weeks earlier (developmentally) than normal domesticated ones (from what I can tell).
I notice he fills up on his greens, and he feels incredibly full (like he did when I finished feeding him milk)
This is my first time ever raising a baby rabbit, so I'm a little worried about this POSSIBLE bloat.
He's chipper and bright eyed.
All in all, a healthy young rabbit
But because he's producing his own cecotropes now, and appears to have no other problems, besides the possible bloat, should I be concerned?

Answer
Hi,

from what I have researched about bloat, it comes on very quickly.  You are describing something that occurs over a longer span of time so it probably is something else.  Possible enteritis.  However if he's eating and drinking and outputting normal fecal and cecal pellets and peeing normal, and behaving normal, these are all good indicators he's okay.

Personally I'd watch how much greens, and especially how much high sugar items (like banana, carrot, etc) you give him.  This can cause gas problems by overgrowing bad bacteria in the gut that live off the sugar.  Which gets him into gi stasis and subsequent problems.  

Young buns they generally are encouraged to become real good hay eaters first, with only a little greens and basically hardly any high-carb/sugar items the first six months of life.  After six months slow intros to greens/increasing greens starts, and only a very limited amount of fruit.  They are designed to eat low-cal, low energy foods and get the most out of them.  Too much rich food gets them overweight and causes gut problems.

I would encourage you to look at this particular article to keep for reference:

http://cottontails-rescue.org.uk/gutstasis.asp

I also would say make sure you have one or two good rabbit vets around you you can get to for exams and emergencies, start here:

www.rabbit.org/vets/vets.html

to find a House Rabbit Society recommended vet near you.  They have links to international rabbit vet listings if you are outside the US.