My Bunny BIT HIS TAIL OFF!!!!

Rubalicious18
Posted: January 19, 2018 • 04:36 AM
I have a 1 year old French Lop Male who is almost 13.5 pounds. His name is Chubz and I absolutely adore him. He is the sweetest bunny every and just loves to eat , sleep , poop and play and cuddle 💗This past month he started biting his tail. It happened in a matter of two days to the point where you could see his cartilage! I rushed him to the vet and they checked for mites , ringworm etc. everything came back negative. He lives inside the house in a huge hutch, he has plenty of toys and living space , plays with us and is def not "bored" . He also has plenty to eat and drink. Completely at loss for words the vet could not offer us much info. He gave us a numbing powder and antibiotic . For a few days it looked better until I noticed he was biting at it again! Back to the vet we went and all he could offer was to amputate the tail as well as neuter him! I was so upset I couldn't imagine doing this to my poor bunny. I tried to save the tail or what was left but evenatually HE BIT IT OFF! Scared and Upset I called the vet and he said he would not bleed out and to keep it clean and it should heal. Since then I have been to the vet again. He was then put on a medicine like Motrin for rabbits as well as a cream they use for burns to help make the area heal. I need any bit of advice from ANYONE . Why does he keep biting his tail! Should I have the vet amputate the rest off?! What else can they give him for pain?! Please help 😢

Self mutilation can have a variety of causes. If your rabbit continues to show excessive irritation and/or interest in his tail/hind end, even though your vet already checked for mites sometimes they can be missed in the skin scrape, so it could be worthwhile to go ahead and treat for them anyways to rule out that possibility. That's going to be the easiest one to rule out If he's still having the behavior after that treatment, I would next be looking into hind end or spinal injury/pain, or nerve problems as the next most likely causes to have my vet investigate. Pain and numbness are common reasons to cause self mutilation in rabbits. So you likely will need to have xrays taken, and possibly a blood test to look for other abnormalities if the xrays don't show anything.

Even with further diagnostics done, you may still not find a cause. In rare instances it can be due to genetics and that can be treated with meds. But that would be pretty rare. Most instances are going to have some sort of underlying health issue as the primary cause of the self mutilation. So here's some reading you can do on the illness.
http://www.medirabbit.com/EN/Skin_diseases/Mechanical/Mutilation/Selfmutilation.htm
http://www.medirabbit.com/EN/Skin_diseases/Mechanical/Mutilation/Mut_doe_en.pdf
http://wildpro.twycrosszoo.org/S/00dis/PhysicalTraumatic/Self_mutilation_rabbits.htm

And if you aren't sure about how rabbit savvy your vet is, I would suggest making sure to find a very experienced rabbit vet. This list can help but it's not perfect. Do your research so you know what to look for in a good rabbit vet.
http://rabbit.org/vet-listings/

Thank you so much for all the input! Do you have any medications to recommend if it’s nerve pain? It’s hard to tell because he totally acts normal , eats, drinks and still plays . It breaks my heart. I will definitely look into all the information you have provided so far. The vet I currently went to has “never” seen this before . So we are also in the process of finding one who is more knowledgeable !

Nerve pain is BEST treated (medically speaking) with opioids, but that is not ideal for long term management health wise (and with the opioid shortage at least here in the US, they are quite difficult to get). Amputation of the remaining part can help. Tramadol may help (it depends on the individual and how his liver metabolizes it), so you could try that.

Sorry to jump on your post - this is what our baby bunny is doing - she is going to the vet - but she looks like she is about to bite her tail off - we can see sinew now