Rabbit Died Suddenly Other Day

Question
I had 2 rabbits for about 2 years now.  One is a netherland/dutch rabbit, and the other was a dwarf black bunny.  I had been feeding them the sunseed pellets as most of their diet and some timothy hay every so often.  I had been using the Cat's Pride litter for the whole time, with no problem.  About a month ago, I changed their litter to Fresh Step, carbon odor control litter.  The black rabbit had been getting really fat over the past year, by the way.  Well, over the past week, the black one started knocking over her litter box and not eating as much.  She had a huge chunk of poop stuck to her butt on Monday and had knocked over her litter again.  I decided to give them each a bath, and put them back in their cages.  About 3 hours later, I came back to check on them, and she was laying flat on her stomach, unable to move, and barely breathing.  I called the emergency vet, since it was about 10pm, and they said it was from the litter, blocking her intestine.  They could have put her on IV and done surgery to remove the blockage, but I think it was too late at that point.  An hour later, she began convulsing and stopped breathing.  My belief is that she might have eaten some of that different litter, but the other one is fine.  I'm bringing him into the vet tomorrow to make sure.  I took all that litter out immediately, and started using "yesterday's news" instead.  What do you think happened?

Answer
I am very sorry for your loss.  I think you did the right thing taking the other bun to the vet and changing the litter immediately.

I think your vet is probably right about the rabbit eating the litter, the cat's pride is a basic clay litter (if i am thinking of the right thing) which doesn't have any chemicals etc in it. But I know Fresh Step has different things in it to help control oder and to make it clump when wet.  I assume she probably ate some litter and it clumped in her stomach causing GI Stasis.  In the mean time before you take your other bun to the vet I would make sure they are getting more hay than pellets.  The hay is a better fiber source for a rabbit as it more closely resembles what they would eat in the wild (which is what their stomachs are made to handle)  

I would also suggest making sure that you make hay a more evident part of the other rabbits diet not just now but for the future to, because this will help with moving things through the digestive track.

Again I am sorry to hear your bun passed.
Good Luck
Amy