My lion head bunny passed away over the weekend and I’m trying to wrap my head around what happened. I would like to know if any exotic vets have any ideas.
For context he was a 5 year old lionhead bunny 2.5 pounds.
On Tuesday night we noticed that he didn’t want to eat his treat or his nightly salad so we took him in to the vet. They took his vitals and did some X-rays and he had an SBO. He had one last year as well but we were able to handle that at home with subcutaneous fluids. This time we decided to let him stay in the ER so it would be less stress on us. He was on fluids and litocane for 38 hours total. At his worst his temperature was 93 degrees and he was lying on his side not moving. He underwent multiple decompressions but they were not working. If he had passed away at this time I would have understood. About 29 hours in he had a big poop during a decompression and after that he had some diarrhea for a while. Things were looking better and we slowly decreased his litocane in the morning until we took him home mid day Thursday. The only thing they gave us was critical care to supplement his food if he wasn’t eating.
Fast forward to Friday. I left that morning for the weekend. My wife took him in Friday afternoon again bc he wasn’t acting right. They took his vitals and did another x ray and said he was still fine. They sent her home with some oral pain killers to give him and subcutaneous fluids.
Saturday morning she gave him his medicine and was in the process of feeding him critical care through a syringe. He started being fussy so she set him down on the couch to take a break. She says a minute or two passed and he jolted up a little bit. He then started swaying trying to leave the couch. My wife picked him up and put him in her life and he passed away.
Was it a heart attack from the stress of being fed? But how was he so stressed now after all he survived. Any ideas or theories would be appreciated I’m just devastated that he made it through all the hard stuff just to pass away after.