Recurring gas in rabbits

Question
Hi

Wondering if you can help me... I have a houserabbit who is 3 now. She gets plenty of attention and exercise and I think her diet's pretty good - she only gets a small amount of pet-shop dried food and plenty of greens and hay.

But she seems to have a recurring problem with gas - at the moment it seems to be happening every few days: her stomach gets very gurgly and noisy, she goes off her food and she lies on her stomach.  Sometimes it only lasts an hour or so and then she's back to normal, othertimes it can be quite a few hours.  I'm careful about it because I know if they stop eating or if their digestive system seizes up it's serious, but after maybe 2-3 hours she always bounces back and seems absolutely fine.

I can't understand it at all because it's not as it she has a bad diet or anything.  I'm just a bit worried in case there could be a serious underlying cause?

Many thanks
Wendy

Answer
Dear Wendy,

Chronic gas can be caused by chronic GI slowdown, and that usually means there is some point of stress or pain triggering the slowdown.  A very common cause is molar spurs:

www.bio.miami.edu/hare/dental.html

Please get bun to a good rabbit vet:

www.rabbit.org/vets

for a full wellness check and *especially* a look deep into the back of the mouth to check for spurs.  This is probably the most common (and oft-overlooked) trigger for chronic GI slowdown, gas, and runny stool.

I hope this helps.

Dana