# rabbits keep getting bloat



## giant snail (Oct 25, 2009)

i have lost quite a few rabbits to bloat. several have been up the vets but none made it.
what am i doing wrong? why are so many getting it?

lost 4 9 week old french lops
2 adult rex ( doe was preg)
1 pet netherland dwarf doe adult
5 lion head x lop babies 7 weeks old
1 dwarf lop
my 4 month old belgian hare buck & 5 month ol frenchie doe ( managed to get them though it on my own 5-6 weeks later now in full health)

i have some lop x pet nethie babies 5 weeks old. 3 of them are all fine at the moment but seem a tiny bit ' podgy' keeping a very close eye on them.

taken them to two different vets [email protected] and thanet animal hospital both told me its bloat had x rays and no blockages just gass bubbles.
all i took to the vets where on pain relief, fluids and anti biotics. havnt even got my vet bill back for 8 of the bunnies i dread to think what its going to be.

they are on wood shavings. have adlib hay and straw
get given thier rabbit mix/pellets every morning and of an eve they get graze on with a bit of flaked barley.
always have fresh water.

at the time the french lop babies where on grass which they where introduced to over 2-3 weeks. also had hay and mix/ pellets

all are put in runs from 3-4 weekd of age atleast twice a week on very short grass. most dont even bother eating it would rather skip around.

what am i doing wrong?
it anoys me because i go round other ' breeders' houses and a lady i know who breeds them they are in sevral inches of muck so deep literd. mixed which chickens and aviry birds. some kept in an indoor cage most thier life which they can just about stretch out. fed adlib mix and not always got hay. one lady gets sawDUST from the wood mills, thier water bottles are green and slimy. and they seem to have no problems with their animals all are really healthy some are VERY fat. cant say all are happy. 
makes me upset i feel like im not looking after them properly due to loosing so many rabbits over the past 2-3 months. then the conditons i see others in and mine seem to be very well looked after in comparison.

 am i making too much fuss over them?

when they get bloat they only get small amount of rabbit mix. graze on and hay every day a bowl of water and a bottle. some times i have to keep putting the bun infront of the bowl to drink.


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## corny girl (Aug 30, 2009)

I can sympathise with you here as i lost quite a few kits & Doe's to Bloat a few years back. To this day i don't know what caused it & why it only affected some & not others (had other Doe's with litters who were all fine). I did look into it & all i could come up with was the grain that is imported that is used to make the feed had some mould spores on & this somehow caused the Bloat. My Vet did tell me that Bloat is a secondary infection, it is something else that usually causes the Bloat & this is then what kills them. I did manage to pull some kits through it but think i lost far more than survived :devil:. It is horrible to witness, the kits just sit hunched up, teeth grinding & then within hours they are dead & when you pick them up & gently shake them you can hear the fluid sloshing about inside them.


You can give them Infacol to help disperse the gas bubbles. Also keep them moving, you may have to nudge them to keep them going.


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## giant snail (Oct 25, 2009)

ohh i see. its a real pain and a great shame too. lost some lovely bunnies.
where would i get Infacol how is it administerd and how much do i give?

i manged to pull though my young french doe and belgian buck. she was really bad really skinny made her hop round the lawn and was eating the grass few times a day. and put her by the leaky hose and she drunk out the puddle. took about 6 weeks for her to gian her weight back on. she is a fraction smaller then my other doe ( unrelated) but they where the same size. but she is a monky now. she has to go in a run or she'l eat all mums plants :whistling2: also massarged them with thier rear higher then thier head. that seemed to help a little.

my mum always say's to me why dont i give them a renne....... i always told her dont be stupid....but would this help???


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## pigglywiggly (Jul 19, 2008)

its caused by a combination of things, there isnt really one trigger.
its when the gut stops moving and the bacteria in the stomach continues to ferment and they blow up with gas.
it does seem to happen more when the weathers changable and a couple of weeks after weaning and if you feed a lot of greens or dried food.

theres nothing wrong with having green bottles - green algae is nice healthy algae, its the red or blue stuff thats dangerous!

you can also try adding some oregano extract to the water, it seems to have antiseptic properties and does help. orego-stim for poultry works out the best value cause its very concentrated.

i wouldnt have anything under 6 months on the grass at all

if i was feeding grazeon i`d reduce the dried food quantity a bit as its very rich. i use it myself and i just mix a few handfuls into the food bucket before i go around ,otherwise i get a bit overgenerous with it with bad results.

dont take babies off mom, leave babies in the cage and move mom out for weaning - less stress for them, so the bloats less likely to happen.

when they`re weaned cut back the amount of dried food you give the youngsters for a couple of weeks........

tbh i think you are overfeeding them by quite a lot.....
can you weigh the quantity of dried food you`d typically give an adult?


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## quadrapop (Sep 20, 2008)

Never had it with my rabbits but I know that barley exposed to any damp can be a cause of bloat....


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## becki_moorcroft (Jul 13, 2009)

i know what your going through something similar happened with us last year and its so heart breaking, all you can do if look carefully at everything you do and try to see what could be improved in your care, but by the sounds of it you're already doing that... 

in terms of prevention in addition to whats above i'd reccomend changing your mix what brand are you using? some are more prone to causing it than others, i HATE weaning rabbits off rabbit royal for example as we've lost loads trying to get them off

i would also reccomend switching from graze on as its very rich, i mix my pellets with HIFI (with apple) the buns love it and do very well, and touch wood no bloat or excess 'sticky poos' since using it, i also add lots of extra chopped hays to the feed and dried nettles, dandelions, barks, roots etc and is working very well in terms of baby rearing and adult condition/health

as for treatment, anitbiotics are a non starter as they'll just upset the gut further, what i used to do when i had problems last year was to seperate and quarenteen, offer pain relief, syringe water and califig we've saved a fair few from bloat in this manner but always using the natural remedies, the ones that recieved medication from the vets (either anitbiotics or zantac) didnt make it, the vets are now using the findings for further research on this


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## giant snail (Oct 25, 2009)

i wouldnt say they are over fed. they get mr johnsons light green bag or the dark green depending if they have babies or are babies. and allen and page rabbit pellets just the standard ones.

every morning a rabbit gets about 25 - 50g a day depending if they are preg, have babies in the nest and the size. if they have babies hopping around they will get an extra handfull and it is increasted by 1 handfull per week so not to over feed them on mix/pellets. also depends if they are giant's or not. ( i have small stubby hands) then they get about 15-20g flaked barley in the evening. and a handfull of graze on per adult rabbit. i find the babies do better on graze on are much chunkier and grow better too then if i didnt feed it. they never get any greens or fresh veg/ fruit any more ever.

they get fantastic quality hay so no crap also very clean straw.
all the rabbits are inside in hutches and have been for 2 weeks now so they dont go on the grass. im going to have to buy hundreds of paving slabs so they can go out side in all the runs i had made rather then keeping them all in hutches inside.


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## animalsbeebee (May 19, 2008)

I had rabbits in past with this and vet said just feed lots and lots of hay and hardly anything else,then never had problem again.


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## giant snail (Oct 25, 2009)

animalsbeebee said:


> I had rabbits in past with this and vet said just feed lots and lots of hay and hardly anything else,then never had problem again.


mine always have adlib hay but when a rabbit has bloat. they wont eat.


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## pigglywiggly (Jul 19, 2008)

i still think your overfeeding on the dried food/grazeon.


mr johnsons food is basically a bag of flaked peas, made to look pretty for pet people, its total tat and had no fibre in it and is great for digestive problems.
you`d be better off using oats rather than barley to mix with your mix/pellets.

more long fibre in the diet
reducing stress
using probiotics such as avipro in the water during stressful times ( weaning etc ) can also help.

( i use dodson and horrell rabbit pellets plus that have them already in my rabbits only get a tablespoon each once per day.)

if your problems dont stop your only other option is to proberbly go onto the massey pellets that have the antibiotics in them.
but you`ll have to stop mixing your rabbits and cavies together all the time if you did that.


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## giant snail (Oct 25, 2009)

pigglywiggly said:


> i still think your overfeeding on the dried food/grazeon.
> 
> 
> mr johnsons food is basically a bag of flaked peas, made to look pretty for pet people, its total tat and had no fibre in it and is great for digestive problems.
> ...



iv fed this food for years and not had any trouble. will look up the D&H rabbit pellets as never heard of it before. should i just feed them purely on pellets? i dont always mix the rabs and pigs..........


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## pigglywiggly (Jul 19, 2008)

no you feed them the same as guinea pigs
80-90% hay and straw

the rest tiny bit of dried food either a quality mix or pellets or pellets&oats with a bit of grass/veg.

that way they are always nibbling on something and their guts are always moving.
you fill them up with lots of dried food, they get their calories in a short time and they stop eating, them the guts stop, then they gas up and die of bloat.

you know it says on the back of rabbit food bags to feed youngsters and nursing moms ad-lib?
thats for rabbit farmers who are growing meat rabbits and want fast growth....if you do this with your pet rabbit the chances of bloat are increased imo.


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## giant snail (Oct 25, 2009)

pigglywiggly said:


> no you feed them the same as guinea pigs
> 80-90% hay and straw
> 
> the rest tiny bit of dried food either a quality mix or pellets or pellets&oats with a bit of grass/veg.
> ...



okay il try that...... crushed oats or rolled oats?
yeah the never have adlib hard food. they will get fat for a start.
also flaked maize is this any good? as i bought a sack few years back and they seemed to like it but only gave them a few as a treat and the mice & rats had most of it.


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## pigglywiggly (Jul 19, 2008)

maize is very fattening and prone to going off the same as barley.

any oats is fine, i prefer whole or bruised because of the dust in rolled, but its personal choice.

before the invention of our modern extruded feeds it was traditional to feed rabbits hay, oats and a variety of weeds and grass and rabbits didnt get bloat and were in better condition imo.
a lot of the older generation of rabbit exhibitors only feed dry 6 days a week and their rabbits have just hay the seventh.

can i ask why you have this thing about feeding a bit of this and a bit of that?
only asking cause its a bit of an odd thing for a breeder to do, the treats and giving tit bits is normally more of a petperson thing?


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## giant snail (Oct 25, 2009)

pigglywiggly said:


> maize is very fattening and prone to going off the same as barley.
> 
> any oats is fine, i prefer whole or bruised because of the dust in rolled, but its personal choice.
> 
> ...



oh its not a usal thing i do. we had a pallet of various feed come in a work and this random sack of flaked maize was on it and they never charged us for it so boss told me i can take it home. and i see that in most rabbits mixes there is flaked maize. so mixed small amounts in thier feed. could hear them all crunching on it :lol2: but as i say the rats/mice had most of it.

the rabbits and guinea pigs sometimes get the treat sticks you hang on the cage as they send offers to our shop we dont sell many at work but its ussaly buy 3 boxes get 1 free so they get some of them once in a while. and the mineral blocks which they have most of the time

the flaked barley at the end of the day was so i wasnt over feeding them too much vits and mins out of the mix i use as they would look at me and then pick thier bowls up every eve as if to say..... well where is it lol. so they used to get a sprinkling of flaked barley every night. nothing much. made them happy and more settled. whats the difference between keeping as pet and breeder...... all should be kept the same maybe slightly different diet...............


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## sarahc (Jan 7, 2009)

I was going to take up a variety of rabbits for show but the ones I wanted have to be fed exclusively on medicated pellets which puts me off.Apparently they die without.I still um and ah over it and stare at the ones I want at shows.


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## pigglywiggly (Jul 19, 2008)

dont take this as harsh cause it isnt meant in a vile/horrible way but..... 

a breeder gives the bunnies/pigs what they need.

a pet keeper gives the buns/pigs what they want ( like feeding kids on maccy-d`s and sweets ) and suffers from `bambi syndrome` - putting human feelings and emotions on an animal.

you`re kinda in between, from your postings your breeding quite big numbers like a breeder but are trying to treat them as pets.

chopping and changing the food and giving tit-bits and sugary honey treat sticks etc isnt going to do your breeders and youngsters digestive systems any good imo.


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## pigglywiggly (Jul 19, 2008)

sarahc said:


> I was going to take up a variety of rabbits for show but the ones I wanted have to be fed exclusively on medicated pellets which puts me off.Apparently they die without.I still um and ah over it and stare at the ones I want at shows.


 
what breed were these?

i know a few breeders that use the medicated pellets, its not a route i`ve ever considered going down myself, i think you`re just masking the problem rather than dealing with the issue.

if i`ve ever had a bun thats had issues like this in the past, i`ve left it to recover in its own time on a mainly hay/straw diet with a touch of oat/pellet on probiotics and pet homed them later on.

i think the `weakness` breeds in, and you have to be a bit ruthless if you dont want to dig yourself into a hole.


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## sarahc (Jan 7, 2009)

silver greys,I'm still very tempted but was told that they are also poor mothers and the 2 problems combined has made me hesitate for several years.I especially don't fancy the prescription food.As I understand people club together to buy in bulk but I don't think I would have any close enough neighbours.


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## pigglywiggly (Jul 19, 2008)

i dont know anyone who keeps those, i know of fox and rex breeders with problems. they feed the moms and babies on the medicated feed till the youngsters are 4months or so then wean them off.

me and bloat is kinds brushed under the carpet and not mentioned much....

i`ve seen the sacks of pellets on ebay!

i know a few people who`s bought rabbits from people who feed medicated and the rabbits have died within a week or two of purchase.
maybe the antibiotics means they havnt got the balance of bacteria in the gut a normally fed one has?

i think pre and pro biotics are the better option in conjunction with sensible feeding.

what does everyone else think?


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## sarahc (Jan 7, 2009)

the breeder was quite open,he was old school.Maybe I could get some and stick to the tried and tested initially and then have a go at overcoming the problem in a small way.I don't like to disregard the advice of some one who has had a variety for many years,they usually have put sentiment aside and know what they are on about which makes me think that the problem will not be overcome by me with my limited experience of rabbits.Still nothing ventured I guess....


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## pigglywiggly (Jul 19, 2008)

it must be hard if your working with such a limited gene pool i guess........suppose all breeds are different, i found the rare breed people tend to be more encouraging of new breeders taking up their hobby

sometimes its `head in the sand` mentality and sometimes exhibitors will do anything to keep a certain line going, especially if its sucessful on the show circuit.

probly cause once you`ve done some winning on a regular basis it can be very hard to get new stock in to do an outcross, you find out who your friends are, lol.

everyones your mate when you`re not a threat for the red cards.

:lol2:


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## Tehanu (Nov 12, 2006)

I'm surprised anyone uses mixed feeds, particularly people breeding. Sticking solely with one of the high fibre complete pellets would be much better all round, in combination with hays and fresh greens only.

The fact is, having a number of rabbits dying of bloat (which is just acute GI stasis, these conditions are a continuum) is going to come down to diet and if you've ruled out mouldy, contaminated foods then your entire basic diet needs looking at.


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## giant snail (Oct 25, 2009)

i have ordred D&H pellets to see what they are like

they have two diff types a normal and a + but there is only 20p diff. will have to see what the diference is. and wean them off the food i have been giving them and see if this helps at all.


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## pigglywiggly (Jul 19, 2008)

ideally you want the plus ones, they have the added herbs that help with digestion.

and you only feed a tiny amount with oodles of hay/straw.


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## giant snail (Oct 25, 2009)

pigglywiggly said:


> ideally you want the plus ones, they have the added herbs that help with digestion.
> 
> and you only feed a tiny amount with oodles of hay/straw.


 okay thanks. well iv orderd a sack of each for now. didnt realise they where going to be so cheap.:no1:


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## pigglywiggly (Jul 19, 2008)

ignore the feeding amounts on the back though, they`re quite high in protein so you need a lot less than the mix you`ve been feeding.

my lot get 2oz each once a day


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## corny girl (Aug 30, 2009)

Saedcantas said:


> I'm surprised anyone uses mixed feeds, particularly people breeding. Sticking solely with one of the high fibre complete pellets would be much better all round, in combination with hays and fresh greens only.
> 
> The fact is, having a number of rabbits dying of bloat (which is just acute GI stasis, these conditions are a continuum) is going to come down to diet and if you've ruled out mouldy, contaminated foods then your entire basic diet needs looking at.



I *was* using pellets at the time i was losing adults & kits to bloat :Na_Na_Na_Na:. I then started using a good quality mix & had no problems after changing over :2thumb:.


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## pigglywiggly (Jul 19, 2008)

rabbit royale? its a really good mix ( and a complete one too ) i wish mine could tolerate it


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## corny girl (Aug 30, 2009)

pigglywiggly said:


> rabbit royale? its a really good mix ( and a complete one too ) i wish mine could tolerate it



Mine wouldn't eat Rabbit Royale on it's own, i had to mix another mix in with it (50/50) then they would eat it all up :2thumb:. I didn't start feeding Rabbit Royale until about 2004/2005. I can't remember the mix i fed after the bloat (something Meadow i think) but it was one my stud partner was feeding & she had no problems at all :2thumb:.


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## pigglywiggly (Jul 19, 2008)

sweetmeadow.

nice mix, cheap but hard to get.


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## corny girl (Aug 30, 2009)

pigglywiggly said:


> sweetmeadow.
> 
> nice mix, cheap but hard to get.




That's the one, in a pale yellow bag if i remember rightly :2thumb:. Was feeding that for a few years then moved onto Rabbit Royale with Burgess Supa Rabbit Deluxe mixed to a 50/50 ratio. Now i just have a Mini Lop left he's on Russell Rabbit (got to be the Carrot & Leek one though, he won't touch the other ones :devil. He does ok on this, he's over 5 now but still as fit as he was when he was shown :2thumb:. Must get some pics of him (i don't think i have any of him at all).


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## giant snail (Oct 25, 2009)

pigglywiggly said:


> ignore the feeding amounts on the back though, they`re quite high in protein so you need a lot less than the mix you`ve been feeding.
> 
> my lot get 2oz each once a day



yup, if i read all guidelines on back of rabbit/horse etc feed i think all my animals would be dead, if not obise :bash:
going to be a week or two before the D&H come as work just not long had an order...... typical.
when i was a child our guinea pigs all used to be fed on rabbit royal. they loved it and all lived a ripe old age too. but when i look back, seems an odd choice lol
i didnt think its much good for them as full of molasas? wouldnt wear thier teeth down + full of sugar? and will give them endles dihorea??

& iv always been told to stay away from russle rab and gurty guinea prodcuts as full of color and cause alot of health problems?? even though we sell tons of it at work even though G'G is 4.95 for 2.5kg now.


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## pigglywiggly (Jul 19, 2008)

think its linseed oil on the royale rather than molasses?

rabbit royale is fine to feed to pigs, i used to fed it mine occasionally till the bag size got smaller by 25% and the price stayed the same :whistling2:

pasture mix is fine too, they love the d&h one

as is herbal goat mix.

russel rabbit carrot and leek is fine for pigs occasionally too

rabbit pellets are not suitable though. they have too much vitamin d and affects the pigs use of calcium, and calcium deposits all over the pigs insides and can lead to death.
plus theres no vit c in them.


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## giant snail (Oct 25, 2009)

pigglywiggly said:


> think its linseed oil on the royale rather than molasses?
> 
> rabbit royale is fine to feed to pigs, i used to fed it mine occasionally till the bag size got smaller by 25% and the price stayed the same :whistling2:
> 
> ...



ahh okay. yeah i know that happend a few years back. when the order came in i was like EH ' boss' why did we order 15kg ones LOL. packing looks smarter though.
yeah i use rural mix in with the pig food. cheap molased grass pellets with flaked barley and flaked pea's its mixed in with a rabbit mix + guinea pig pellets and vit c in thier water for a week every month.

my friend was looking after my animals for one day and fed the pigs rabbit pellets....... their bowls where still full the next day and ate all the hay and graze on LOL:bash:


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