Broken Femur

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vwelsh

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Looking for advice,
My rabbit 6 years old has broken his femur very high up. He's been to the vet, had xrays and we've been sent home with Metacam, giving him a 8kg dosage. The vet advised us to cage rest him with very limited movement, and give him a chance to heal at home. The break is in an area he assured me was well cushioned with muscle, and the bones should be fairly stable, and a splint would do more damage then good. Surgery is out of the question for me as he estimated it to be upwards of 3 grand and living so rural, we'd have to travel a fair distance to even find someone to preform it, its not an option. I'm wondering if giving him cage rest is the right thing to do, over euthanasia. I want to give him a fair chance I'm just debating the possibility that the break will even heal. I'm okay with knowing that he will never fully be the same, but right now his quality of life is very compromised from what he's use to, and I'd hate to see him continue on like that. He's still eating/drinking very well, and the same bathroom habits, and when he does move, he gets around pretty well. Our challenges right now is that I unfortunately do have to move/pick him up at least once a day to clean him up, as his injuring is making it difficult for him to stay sanitary. Right now he is cage resting, he has less then half his cage available to him, with his bed taking up 80% of this space. In front of his bed, he has about 6 inches lengthwise of care fresh space, where his food dish/hay/water bottle are, as well as he continues to use the care fresh as his litter when he feels up to it. I also have been utilizing the rim of his bed to fill with his pellets and fruit/veggies that hes eating away at whilst laying down. My main concern right now is that if healing is at all possible, that moving him to clean his bottom will disrupt any possible mending of his injury, but I'm not sure what else to do. Right now, we support him below his front legs, and lower stomach and with his good leg to use water wipes to clean up, and apply sudocream afterwards, as well as change out the bedding hes resting on, removing any soiled carefresh. If theres anything else I could do or do better, Id love some advice.
 
As long as he's on adequate pain meds and the pain is under control, I would give it a chance. He may not be thrilled with 4-6 weeks of cage rest, but that's not the end of the world, and it will be over with soon enough. Sometimes restricted movement is the best option for a leg healing in rabbits. And if the bone isn't too out of alignment, it can heal up quite well.

As long as the leg is staying tucked and not moving around too much when you clean him off, it should continue to heal. Though if you can change your rabbits litter set up to make it so he stays cleaner so you don't have to clean him off as much, that would be ideal. I haven't found carefresh to be very good at keeping urine drained away and from soaking a rabbits feet/bum.

I had an older disabled bun that I used disposable puppy pee pads and vet bed with, and that worked really well keeping her urine drained away from her and her fur staying dry. Then I would just keep the puppy pee pads changed out every day as needed, and the vet bed washed every few days as needed. As long as you have an absorbent layer under the vet bed, it drains the urine right away from the rabbit. If your vet can clip the bum fur short, that can help keep the cleaning to a minimum as well. With this set up, I never had to wash my bun with hind limb paresis.

Another options over euthanizing and would be less expensive than putting a rod in the bone, would be amputation. Though this would require the lengthy care trip to have it done. But is another option available over having to put your rabbit to sleep.
 

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