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green diahhrea

22 10:39:50

Question
My daughter has a hymalyan rabbit that is approx 3 years old.  Today when cleaning her cage out I noticed 3 small areas where she had green daihhrea.  This past week I noticed that she had been scooping out the pellet food and just eating the fancy snacks in her food.  And eating it seemed like alot of them.  We live out in the country and I have not been able to find a vet around us that is familiar with rabbits ( had looked before when her buck had gotton sick earlier this year)  So I am wondering if there is any home remedies for rabbit diahhrea? Thank you for any advice.

Answer
Hi Anna,

well diet changes are required.

First, you need to change her over (the next month, gradually) to a food pellet that does not have treats in it.  Just timothy pellets.  I recommend Oxbow Timothy pellets as most all rabbits like them.  But you need to get her off the treats.

Second, you need to reduce the amount of greens you give her, if you give her any.  I'd say reduce it at least by half.

Third, You need to greatly reduce all high sugar, high carbohydrate foods you give her.  Greatly reduce carrots, fruits, and get rid of bread, oats or potatoes.  No high starch foods.  It's just too much sugar and calories and it can cause bacteria problems in the gut.

Fourth, you must increase her hay intake.  Rabbits are designed to eat low calorie, low energy foods (even though they love high calorie foods - they are like people that way).  You have to give them good timothy hay or orchard grass hay to eat, all the time make sure she has some hay to munch on.  This will keep her gut healthy and prevent diarrhea.

Fifth, for the next few days give her digestive enzymes (acidophilus) which is good bacteria for her stomach to help shift the balance in her gut to good bacteria.  There are banana-flavored acidophilus wafers or you can open up an acidophilus capsule and sprinkle some of it over her food pellets.  She will wind up eating some of them.

Sixth, increase her exercise time out of the cage.  Being able to run and move around helps the gut work better.

To find a good rabbit vet, start here:

www.rabbit.org/vets/vets.html

for a House Rabbit Society recommended vet in your area.  If you can't find one here, call up your local or state rabbit rescue groups and ask them who they'd go to if they had a sick or injured rabbit.

Lee