Let's keep the streak going!

It has been 24 hours since either bunny has had medicine, a force-feeding, or has peed on me.

It all started with River's 3-day stint where she selectively forgot how to eat any solid food aside from the random piece of banana chip or candy in her pellets.  She acted hungry and showed interest in food, but refused to eat anything.  No signs of pain and her teeth looked good, so maybe a mini stroke or she's getting a bit dotty in her old age.

I had to play dirty and paint her front paws with critical care since she refused to swallow it from the syringe or actively tried to stick her tongue in it to make it spray everywhere.  I also discovered that if I made it into a thin paste, she would lap up off of a plastic lid, which was way cleaner than the finger paint method with the bonus that she wouldn't flick it off of her paws all over the place.  I also managed to get her to anger eat some celery by gently whapping her in the face with it until she'd try a bite.

Just when I finally got River to eat pellets again and put away the bunny medical supplies, Simon decided to hop on the sick bunny bandwagon.  We had some pretty severe storms come through the area and think the stress of the howling wind and thunder spooked him enough to stop eating.

Needless to say, I was very unpopular around here.  The bunny shunning was real and intense!

Thankfully, they're both slowly getting back to their normal feeding routine, they're having fun playing tag, and I've been given a full pardon for my earlier transgressions.  Life is good!

So over it.

This was taken during River's eye ouchie recovery.  I was attempting to get her to drink something, so I made up some cold peppermint tea.  I love that even though she refused to touch it, she still looks annoyed that Simon is helping himself to some!

River ended up getting twice daily antibiotic eye drops for 5 days after scratching her third eyelid/nictitating membrane.  The medicine probably upset her stomach, so she refused to eat/drink willingly and had to be force fed a few times.

I did discover that you can annoy a bunny into anger-eating some fresh celery!  This involved gently (but relentlessly) tapping her nose and mouth with the celery stalk until she would get annoyed and box at it, then try to move it out of the way, then nip at it and discover that it tasted pretty good and would then eat a bit of it. 

This process had to be repeated every couple of hours for those 5 days...which got old for the both of us pretty quickly.  It's an effective (if tedious) method of getting a bunny to eat actual food instead of just critical care.  I went with the celery because it has a good bit of water and fiber to help stave off GI stasis and keep her from getting dehydrated.

I hope this info helps any of you who have a bun who won't eat!