Gastrointestinal Tract
The gastrointestinal tract is also known as the GI tract, gastric tract, or digestive system. It is the passageway that food takes through the rabbit. A rabbit’s GI tract is very similar to a horse; however, there are some differences which can lead to clinical complications. We discuss the rabbit’s digestive tract in the Diet section.
Gastric Stasis (GI Stasis)
When the GI tract stops working, or functioning properly it is classed as GI stasis. This causes the rabbit pain and stress, making it stay incredibly still and usually in a loaf position.
Owners and untrained veterinarians find it hard to diagnose GI stasis at this stage.
Once the stasis becomes advanced, the rabbit will not drink, eat, its eyes will be sunken in, can be limp or even pass away.
One simple way you can check whether your rabbit has GI stasis, is to gently touch it’s tummy. If you don’t feel food moving or the rabbit’s tummy is hard like a rock it may be heading towards GI stasis.
Keep an eye on it’s behaviour. If it looks like it is in pain, or shows any of the signs listed above, get it to the vet quickly. GI stasis can kill in hours.
What happens to the tummy?
The reason why you check for food movement or how hard the belly is, is because when food is passed through the gut it has a thin porridge consistency. When a rabbit isn’t drinking enough water, the consistency slowly dries out and becomes pasty, or in bad cases, even dry. That is because the liquids are absorbed from the tract and passed into the circulatory system, to keep the rabbit alive. This will make the tummy rock-hard and the bunny will find it hard to move.
A normal bunny tummy should be like a filled water balloon. You should be able to gently press it and move the guts around. Mind you, your bunny won’t like you doing that too much and may move away.
Once GI stasis stops the rabbit from pooping, gas builds up in the stomach and causes a lot of pain. This creates a pH imbalance and changes the cecal microflora and turns into cecal dybiosis.
Dybiosis
is an imbalance in bacterial composition, changes in bacterial metabolic activities, or changes in bacterial distribution within the gut. The three types of dysbiosis are: 1) Loss of beneficial bacteria, 2) Overgrowth of potentially pathogenic bacteria, and 3) Loss of overall bacterial diversity.
National Institute of Health
This in turn changes the water level and electrolyte balance, which results in ketoacidosis (low insulin production, just like in diabetes), and hepatic lipidosis (which is when triglycerides build up in the liver cells and stop it from functioning). This in turn can cause ulcers and ruptures.
What should I do?
The first thing is, is to syringe feed your bunny water with some mushed up pellets in it, or if you have Critical Care, use that. It should be the consistency of thin, runny porridge. It doesn’t matter if it is really runny, the bunny needs as much liquid as possible. Only give it a maximum of 3-5ml over 5 or more minutes. Take it slowly and don’t over feed the rabbit, give it time to swallow the food. In another 10-15 minutes, give it another 3-5ml.
You can burst the rabbit’s stomach if the GI stasis has dried out the gut. Most times the rabbit will start not swallowing the food if it cannot eat any more. When it gets to that stage, your bunny may have a rupture, or it may have kick-started the gut again and the bunny will bounce back. Don’t force the rabbit to eat if it doesn’t want it.
Only give the rabbit a maximum of 10ml of food over a half an hour. Never overfeed. You can repeat this process once an hour for two hours. But make sure the rabbit gets a long break between feeds. As this should stimulate the gut to start moving again.
Keep checking the tummy for movement and squishiness.
It’s your job to get the gut moving again, restore the electrolyte balance, insulin levels and relieve the dehydration and anorexia.
Gut stimulating fresh foods
Once your rabbit is moving around again and looking for food, give it any or all of the following:
- dark celery leaves
- dandelion leaves
- white clover
- plantain leaves
- a good feed of grass
- cucumber
Make sure that it gets a lot of water in its gut to help pass the dried food that was caught in its gut.
High fibre foods, like grass, dandelion leaves and plantain, will help settle its tummy and get the caecum to start functioning again.
Don’t feed treats, fruit or salad greens to your rabbit for a couple of days. The sugars and carbohydrates can cause pain in the gut.
Make sure the bunny has its normal amount of pellets to balance the wet with the dry. Rabbits are good at managing their intake, so let it do it’s own thing.
What prevents GI stasis?
The best and only way to prevent GI stasis is to make sure to give your rabbit a lot of fibre in it’s diet, through hay, grass and good quality pellets.
The more fresh grass your rabbit eats, the better it will be.
Gas, Colic and Bloat
Gas, colic and bloat are all the same thing. It is caused by eating too many carbohydrates (i.e pellets, treats, carrots, fruit) and not eating enough fibre. It is the beginning of GI stasis and is where the gut initially undergoes pH level changes and creates gas-producing bacteria.
As the bacteria increase, and are not treated, the rabbit gets sicker and will develop GI stasis.
The rabbit will have a bloated stomach, and in bad cases will get a bloated caecum and large intestine.
What prevents gas?
Don’t feed too many pellets, sugary foods, treats or fruit. Instead, maintain a high fibre diet.
What can I do if my bunny has gas?
According to Minnesota Companion Rabbit Society administer Simethicone. These are baby gas drops found at any pharmacy or supermarket.
They say that this is a natural product that helps break up any gas bubbles. It is NOT a natural product, it is a synthetic chemical.
Gripe Water is the only natural product made of different herbs. I use Gripe Water because it doesn’t have a use-by date and my rabbits like the herby flavour. It also works faster.
I am not a vet, nor am I giving advice. However, this is the dosage I give my rabbits:
Dwarf/small rabbits: 0.5ml every hour for 3 hours.
2-4kg rabbit: 1ml every hour for 3 hours.
5+kg rabbit: 1.5ml every hour for 3 hours.
The rabbit may not need more than one dose. If the rabbit’s behaviour picks up after the hour, do not continue with the second dose. You can skip an hour and see how the rabbit is behaving, and make a judgement for your own pet. You know your rabbit’s normal behaviour better than anyone.
Simethicone and Gripe Water are made for human babies with bubbles in their milky tummies. Use them with caution on a rabbit.