Angora rabbits can die from woolblock. Where cats and dogs can vomit when they have a hairball rabbits cannot. The best way to treat woolblock is prevention. Grooming the rabbit frequently and providing a proper diet is well worth it in the long run. If you do have problems with woolblock one of the first signs will be the rabbit is not eating and/or the size of the droppings gets smaller than usual for that rabbit. I have found the best treatment to be dandelions (if you are as fortunate as I am to have lots of them available). I feed two large handfuls per day along with all of the alfalfa, hay, and bird seed the rabbit will eat. I do not feed any pellets during this time. Once I see the size of the droppings has gotten larger again I will give pellets to the rabbit.
Other remedies can include giving pineapple juice (frozen concentrate) one tablespoon of juice to two tablespoons of water, papaya tablets, petromalt (hairball remedy for cats) or Colace syrup.
One should also clip the wool as short as possible so the rabbit does not ingest anymore wool.
Treating Enteritis of Young Rabbits
One year, I had problems with the young bunnies getting enteritis. It usually occurred in rabbits
between the ages of 7-14 weeks. They get diarrhea and within 24-48 hours are dead. I have had this
happen with two litters.
The first litter I treated them with Albon (aka Di-Methox, a coccidia medication) as soon as I noticed the problem but lost
all 3 of them. When it happened again I thought to myself I am NOT going to let these bunnies die (or at
least I was going to give it my best effort to try and pull them through). I noticed 2 of them in the litter of 6
had diarrhea when I went out to check on them one morning. They were perfectly fine the night before. I
gave them both a dose of Bene Bac and quickly did some research.
I found enteritis causes the bunny to
have severe diarrhea, dehydration, and bloats with gas. So I headed to Walmart to search for over-the-counter medications that may help these symptoms. This time I’m treating the symptoms and not the disease.
So, I bought Gas Drops for Infants and Imodium AD. I came home and first gave the bunnies about .15 on
the eye dropper of the gas drops, waited an hour and gave them 1/2 tablet of the Imodium AD which I
dissolved in water. I then removed their water and gave them a mixture of Pedialyte and tea in their water
bottle. I did force this liquid into the one that seemed to be the most severe. I also removed their pellets
and just gave them timothy hay. I worked in the rabbit building that day so I could monitor the progress of
the bunnies and to be honest felt it was probably all in vain. Well, by evening they no longer had the
diarrhea, weren’t hunched up due to the gas pai,n and were starting to nibble on the hay and drink the tea.
By the next morning they were alive and seemed to be happy and healthy. I did introduce oats to them in
the evening of the second day and kept them on the diet of oats, hay, and cheerios for 3-4 days. I slowly
introduced the pellets again and am happy to say this seemed to work. I did have the ‘runt’ have another
episode and did the same treatment plus I added about a tablespoon of Activia to his diet three days in row, until I noticed he was eating again. I seriously doubt this would have worked if I had not caught this
soon after the onset of the Enteritis but one never knows!
I am passing this information along as something I tried and had success with. It is up to the breeder/owner to
determine if they want to use this treatment. I now have these medications as a part of my bunny
medicine cabinet!