rabbit excessive drinking of water

Question
I am writing regarding our rabbit which is a mini lop. For the past couple days he has been excessively drinking water and is not eating his food. He still comes out of his cage and moves around the rec room but is not as active as he was. He is approximately 6 years old. One problem we have in our area is that there is not a vet who knows much about rabbits. I would appreciate any help that you can provide us.
                    Thank You

Answer
Dear Ed,

Your bunny's lethargy and inappetence suggest that he needs the attention of a good rabbit vet ASAP:

www.rabbit.org/vets

Try the list linked there to find one near you.  If he's not eating, it's very important that you read the following articles:

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

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

and print this one for your vet:

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

When a bunny starts drinking and peeing excessively (a vet will list this as
"PU/PD"--polyuria/polydypsia), the first thing we usually think is that the
bunny has renal disease.  This should definitely be checked by the vet with a complete blood chemistry panel.

But I'll also share this interesting case with
you, just in case your bunny's bloodwork turns out to be normal.

We recently had a case of a bunny drinking excessively here.  His bloodwork
was completely normal, and our local vet could find nothing wrong. But
Barnabas' "mom" could tell something was wrong.  He was just "off", as she
put it.  She called me to ask if I had any ideas, and also mentioned that
the bunny's face was sopping wet.  The attending vet had suspected that the
wetness was due to an upper respiratory infection and prescribed antibiotics
(without taking a sample for culture and sensitivity).

When I heard about the wet face, I told her I'd be willing to have a look a
the bunny's teeth, just to be sure they were okay.  (The vet she was seeing
is a good vet, but not very experienced with rabbit dentistry,
unfortunately.)

When she brought Barnabas over, one look at his wet face made it clear that the wetness was saliva, not nasal discharge.  His nose was completely dry!
So out came the otoscope and we had a good look deep into his mouth.

Lo and behold!  His left lower premolar had, for some reason, grown so long
that it was poking the roof of his mouth!  It was no longer meeting the
opposing tooth at all.

I was able to file the tooth flat (took off about 2.5mm!) so that it met the
upper premolar, and within two days the bunny stopped drooling and stopped
drinking excessively. Apparently he was just drinking to soothe the sore in
his mouth!

So dental problems might be something to consider if you have a PU/PD bunny
with no obvious metabolic disease.

Please see:

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

and

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

for complete information.

I hope this helps.

Dana