Rabbit keeps biting her back; infection

My rabbit Coco had a bald spot on her back i noticed Saturday night. Sunday I noticed it was turning reddish around the edges. Monday morning it was infected already because overnight she kept biting her back.

After taking Coco and MoCho to see my vet on that Monday- she gave them Revolution. They seemed to be scratching less for two days. Now they both are scratching again.

But we did clean up everything in their living area with hot water and soap (and a little bleach). And I have been cleaning up after them a lot more this week.

The question I have is, Coco will not stop biting at her back. So I can see that her infection is not healing, and she is starting to make it bigger down her back a bit. How can i get her to stop biting it? Sometime the other rabbit will lick and bite at her wound for her!

The antibiotic is very difficult to give her, almost impossible for us. For now we found putting it on her paws and then she will lick it off of herself. But I'm not sure how effective that is.

She will let me put the brown topical medicine on her back for a few minutes, but then she will start licking it off after that.

The other rabbit, Mocho's (hotot mix) fur is fine. Only Coco (single maned lionhead) has the problem. They are both female and around 4months old.

Any suggestions?

I feed them alfa hay all the time, one cup of pellets at night, and green leafy veg. Occasional fruit like papaya for treat.

Vets sell a bitter spray that is safe to use on wounds, however some bunnys like the taste of bitter spray.
What about a bunny coat? (small dog sized)
A cone would be the last resort.
As per the oral medication, putting it right in her mouth is the best option. Have you tried to bunny burrito her?

ah bunny burrito... unsuccessfully have tried it! She ended up burrowing her head in her chest so we still couldn't get to her mouth! I guess we'll try again.

Now I'm thinking she might have Red Mites (Dermanyssus gallinae) because it causes extreme itching which can result in secondary bacterial infection. So I'm thinking anything preventing her from itching will make her frustrated... but I will try the bitter spray!

Did the vet do a skin scraping and/or bacterial swab? Or was the sore spot at least swabbed and looked at in clinic?
Bunnys are tricky when it comes to antibiotics, you need to find out what kind of bacteria youre dealing with before the bun goes on antibiotics otherwise you will just end up with a bun thats immune to certain antibiotics.
If its mites the revolution should have dealt with it if it was dosed properly.

A sweater will still prevent them from scratching at the area if they dont eat the sweater. Sure beats having to use a cone.

I've got some pics in this thread on the bunny burrito.
http://rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=67951&forum_id=16
The trick is to get it snug around their neck (not in a strangle kinda way) so they cant slip their head into the towel or body out.

The vet didn't do a scraping and didn't swab the wound. She just saw it and said "oh! it's infected!"

Will Revolution work on Red Mites? I just read online that treatment should be Ivermectin for these.

Thanks for the thread- I will try it tonight with my husband!

And your suggestion about bitter spray has helped! I actually used a couple drops of swedish bitters near the wound. She didn't even notice, and when the other rabbit Mocho went to lick her back she totally didn't like the bitters! Now she's leaving Coco's back alone! Seems to help Coco a bit too... so far ;-)

sigh... tried the bunny burrito according to your thread. We way failed! She never even let me lift up a corner or the towel before leaping away. Ended up just putting it on her paws again...

What flavour is the antibiotic? Gus was recently on antibiotics and we put him in a bunny burrito to give it to him, but he kicked and made such a fuss, that most of the medicine got all over him and us and barely any into his stomach! So the next time I needed to give it to him, I decided to just offer him the syringe and see if he'ddrink it that way.Once he got the taste (grape flavoured!) he practically attacked me trying to drink it all down!

Hope that helps!

Rue

I would ask if the vet thinks it could be fungal if there's no improvement. Those can get infected or look infected.

****UPDATE*****

We finally took her back to the vet, who apologized for not showing us how to give Coco the medicine the first time. Then she demonstrated how to do it... bunny burrito style and also if she really is stubborn can grab the nap of the neck very gently to put the med in her mouth.

The next day it was my turn, and guess what? I DID IT!!! It took only 2 min and she was fine, no whining or grunting and wasn't angry at me later. YAY!

Also I asked the vet about some kind of wrap or shirt to put on the back, she said DO NOT cover the wound, it'll get too much moister and we need it to be dry to heal. Also rabbits CANNOT have a cone, they need to eat their own poop from their but and a cone would prohibit that.

We ended up leaving off the topical med which was making it feel too dry and so she would bite at it. We also separated the other rabbit from her (unless it's play time) to keep Mocho from biting Coco's back too.

Looks like its on the way to healing

Watermelons wrote:

Did the vet do a skin scraping and/or bacterial swab? Or was the sore spot at least swabbed and looked at in clinic?
Bunnys are tricky when it comes to antibiotics, you need to find out what kind of bacteria youre dealing with before the bun goes on antibiotics otherwise you will just end up with a bun thats immune to certain antibiotics.
If its mites the revolution should have dealt with it if it was dosed properly.

A sweater will still prevent them from scratching at the area if they dont eat the sweater. Sure beats having to use a cone.

I've got some pics in this thread on the bunny burrito.
http://rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=67951&forum_id=16
The trick is to get it snug around their neck (not in a strangle kinda way) so they cant slip their head into the towel or body out.

Click to expand...

Watermelons is correct that if it was mites the Revolution should have taken care of it.

You should also possibly separate the rabbits (for ex: 2 x-pens next to each other to prevent the other bun from grooming the area

here is a thread with a picture of how another member made a soft e-collar for her bun which worked well

http://www.rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=37816&forum_id=16&msg=2

cocorabbit wrote:

Also I asked the vet about some kind of wrap or shirt to put on the back, she said DO NOT cover the wound, it'll get too much moister and we need it to be dry to heal. Also rabbits CANNOT have a cone, they need to eat their own poop from their but and a cone would prohibit that.

Click to expand...

Theres a HUGE difference in bandaging/wrapping the wound and putting a little doggie sweater on. Putting a sweater on is still allowing air movement and is preventing the rabbit from biting or scratching at the area, Unless you use something skin tight. Im not saying to use a tight sweater, no bunny would tolerate that, but you need something to protect the wound.

Rabbits are also capeable of eating those special poops right after theyve left them on the ground, and if it comes down to it, aecollar may be necessary especially if youre not willing to use something like a sweater to prevent the biting and scratching. And its not going to hurt them not getting those poops for a few days either.

***UPDATE****

Coco is well and back to normal again!!

The trick was separating our other rabbit MoCho from her. Because when she would groom her, she'd focus on that spot and kept biting it.

Also, being able to give her the antibiotic (and actually go in her mouth) did it too. After 3 days of successfully giving her the med you could see the wound healing up.

Now the bunnies are back together and very happy! :hug2:

thanks everyone for your comments and support!!!