Critical Care for Rabbits: A Step-by-Step Emergency Guide

How to Prepare Critical Care Formula for Rabbits Recovering from Surgery or Illness?

Today, I am going to talk about critical care rabbit and how to prepare Critical Care formula to feed rabbits who are recovering from surgery or some other illness. If you are new to our site, welcome! We give tips and tricks on how to ensure you have a happy and healthy bunny in your home.

What is Critical Care Formula?

Critical Care is an emergency rabbit food formula used for giving rabbits who are sick and recovering from surgery or illness. It’s a powder-based formula, so you get a bag of it, mix it with water to create the formula that you’ll feed your rabbit.

It gives them the calories and nutrients they need to start feeling better, especially when they’re not eating enough on their own. Giving them Critical Care in this way also helps get their digestion going again, which is why it’s typically very important after surgery. A rabbit’s health depends on their digestion continuing to move. If they have to go under anesthesia during surgery, that means they’re obviously not eating. Giving them Critical Care afterward helps their digestion start going again. Usually, for a couple of days afterward, you have to give your rabbit a little bit of Critical Care. If you need critical care rabbit, you can get here.

Why You Should Always Have Critical Care on Hand

My vet recommended always having a bag on hand just in case. Even though you’re normally not going to use it before you go to the vet, it’s still good to have for emergency situations where you can’t get to your vet or get a bag of it. Usually, you will also be able to get bags of this at your vet. It’s just something really good to have around because a rabbit’s digestion and keeping it moving is very important for their health.

When to Use Critical Care Formula

Usually, rabbits will only need Critical Care when they are either recovering from surgery or some other illness that is causing them not to eat much. Sometimes rabbits who are severely stressed, anxious, or even depressed will also require Critical Care because they become anorexic essentially and they’re not eating on their own. You may also have to administer Critical Care to rabbits having tooth problems. Rabbits who have overgrown teeth that can’t quite eat pellets or hay because their teeth keep getting in the way need Critical Care until they can get surgery to get their teeth trimmed. I do not recommend using Critical Care unless you have the guidance of your veterinarian because sometimes rabbits don’t eat because they have a blockage in their stomach. Giving them Critical Care or force-feeding them isn’t going to help and may possibly hurt. It’s always best to visit your veterinarian first and get their advice or at the very least give your veterinarian a call and let them know what your rabbit’s symptoms are so that they can give you advice from there. While I do have a lot of experience with rabbits, I am not a veterinarian, so definitely take your veterinarian’s advice over mine.

How to Mix Critical Care Formula

Mixing your Critical Care formula is actually really easy. You’re just going to mix two parts of warm water (you want it to be warm water, not cold water) with one part of the Critical Care formula. So, twice as much water as you do with the powder formula, and just mix it together until you get a kind of pudding-like consistency.

It should be kind of slurpable because if you have to put it into a syringe for your rabbit to eat, you want to be able to press it through a syringe. If you need to add a little bit of extra water to get it to that pudding consistency, then do so.

What to Do If You Don’t Have Critical Care

In a pinch, if you don’t have any Critical Care formula on you and your vet recommends feeding your rabbit because maybe they’ve got super stressed and they’re just not eating now and you can’t get to a vet right away, you can use your rabbit’s pellets. Most types of rabbit pellets will dissolve in water. You will mix your rabbit’s pellets with water and mix them up until you have some kind of mud, well, watery mud type consistency, and then you can feed that to them. I don’t recommend this if you can avoid it because it doesn’t have the same type of calories and nutrients that Critical Care has to help your rabbit recover, but in a pinch, this is also something you can do to help your rabbit start eating again.

Feeding Amounts Based on Weight

The amount you’re going to feed your rabbit depends on their weight. For every pound your rabbit weighs, you want to feed them about 22.5 milliliters of Critical Care in a day. So, for my bunny, who’s about 4 pounds, I would give her about 90 milliliters in a day. Now, you generally don’t want to give this to your rabbit all at once. You want to split it up into two to three sessions throughout the day. Give half of the appropriate amount for a rabbit in the morning and the other half in the evening, or even split it up into three sessions and give one-third in the morning, one-third at about lunchtime, and one-third in the evening. This way, your rabbit isn’t eating it all at once and is continuing to get food throughout the day.

If your rabbit is still eating a little bit, the amount they’re going to need to eat of Critical Care is also going to be reduced. Sometimes after surgery, your rabbit will be eating a little bit, but just not as much as they need to, in which case you can also give them less Critical Care formula but still be wanting to give them a little bit. If your veterinarian gives you different instructions than follow your veterinarian’s instructions because they’ll know what your specific rabbit needs. This is more general advice and I can’t give you advice on your specific rabbit.

How to Feed Critical Care to Your Rabbit

When feeding your rabbit Critical Care, it is ideal if you can get them to eat from a spoon or a bowl. Most of the time, your rabbit won’t do this and simply won’t choose to eat it on their own, even the ones that are flavored like banana. Most of the time, rabbits won’t want to eat it, whether because they’re sick and don’t want to eat anything or they just don’t trust it as a new food. But it’s always good to try first. Try offering it to your rabbit in the bowl or on a spoon to see if they’ll eat it. If they won’t, then you’ll have to syringe feed your rabbit. The only thing you want to make sure you keep in mind with Critical Care is to only give them about one to two milliliters at a time. You don’t want to try to squeeze the whole thing into their mouth because they won’t have time to chew and swallow. So, give them just one to two milliliters at a time, let them chew and swallow, and then give them one to two more milliliters. Just keep doing it that way until they have finished their dose. It’s going to take a while for sure, so don’t expect this to be an easy process, but it’s what you got to do to make sure your rabbit is able to eat, take their medicine, and recover quickly.

So that’s all for Critical Care Rabbit today. Hope you found this article helpful. Share it with your bunny parents friends if they needed.