Rabbit received traumatic injury while at vet, and now refuses to eat

Question
My rabbit Otto is a 2.2lb Netherland Dwarf buck approaching 3 1/2 years of age.  I took him to the vet last Thursday for an ongoing soft stool issue (he has been having soft stool on and off--more off than on until very recently--for several months).  His diet consists of a quarter cup of high quality pellets--I believe the brand is Purina Advanced Quality Show Formula--and as much timothy hay as he wants. He always has access to as much water as he wants via a water bottle which I sanitize with a bit of vinegar weekly.  There are no issues with either the hay or the pellets, both are fine/not moldy/fresh.  When he had soft stool, I gave him a couple flakes of oatmeal, increasing the amount slowly over time when the soft stool continued until I had it under control.

When I took him to the vet, they were soaking a bit of fecal matter off his behind (I wasn't sure how to safely remove it so I asked them to) and he kicked hard, and lost function in his left hind leg.  Digital scans showed that a good portion of bone was missing from that hip joint, and that the other hip was not normal.  I come from a medical family and when my father (a retired physician) read the scans he said it looked like a condition that often happens to people where there is a poor blood supply to this part of the body and the bones die.  He also has a lot of deterioration in the sacroiliac/the connection of his spine to his pelvis according to the vet.

The possibilities as I understand them is that either his nerves to that hind leg have been strained (recoverable) or severed (not recoverable).

Now, he was moving around fine before this injury.  He was happy and as far as I could tell not in pain.  Ever since this injury he refuses to eat his hay and pellets, so I have been trying to coax him into eating different rabbit-safe foods like celery, carrots, even treats like raisins and apples.  Now he is refusing to eat even treats, though he's still drinking water.

He lives in an indoor wire-mesh cage which I have since covered with a towel--I change the towel at least once a day since his injury.

The vet put him on metacam (one drop per day), and he's happy and not in pain for a brief period after I give him this, but I've read that it can cause the animal to stop eating.  I did some reading on dosages for metacam and came up with that being a ~1kg rabbit he could have two drops a day without a serious risk of stomach ulcers, so I've done that for him today and yesterday and it seems to help.

Do you have any suggestions for how I might get him to eat?  I cannot bring myself to force feed him again-- I force fed him a pureed blend of hay and apple juice on the vet's recommendation twice on Friday and once on Saturday, and at the end of Saturday he wasn't even swallowing, he would just let it dribble out and look at me as though I was putting him through his own personal version of ...Hades.

At the same time I'm torn on whether or not I should simply euthanize him.  I can tell he's in pain.  He's depressed.  But when medicated he seems almost himself again -- he even kissed my face today and yesterday after I gave him his pain medication.  I almost think that if I hit the right combination of medication that his tummy might settle down and his pain abate enough that he might start eating again and he might recover use of his leg and I might not have to lose him right now, and my heart is beyond broken at this point from seeing him so helpless and in so much pain.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my rather tangled query.

Answer
Dear Claire,

Don't give up on your bunny.  I would find an experienced rabbit vet here:

www.rabbit.org/vets

and get a second opinion on all this.  The radiographs might not have been very good, and with a prognosis this dire, I'd want secondary confirmation.  It's very unusual for a bunny this young to have such severe skeletal problems, though an inbred Netherland Dwarf would be a "good" candidate for such things, if they are congenital.

Pain is a major problem in rabbits, as it can elicit ileus.  Please read this immediately:

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

and ask the *new* vet about combining metacam and tramadol for pain. This is an *excellent* combination that could make a huge difference in your bunny's quality of life while his condition is being re-evaluated by another vet.

Please also see:

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

Until your bunny's GI tract is moving normally again, he will not want to eat, so that is of paramount importance.  Stress/pain are major reasons for ileus in domestic rabbits, and this should be treated alongside any of the pain signs he's exhibiting as far as his hips are concerned.

I hope this helps.

Dana