Bunny has MRSA!

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lottiepatt

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Hi all,

Seeking some advice from the UK. My bunny Pierre has had a few abscesses, he was seen by vets and treated with baytril, they went away at first but one since came back on his front leg but it didn't appear to be causing any issues so the vet advised we leave it. A few weeks ago he went lame on his back leg, didn't appear to be broken/fractured but it was quite swollen and warm to the touch and so he's been treated with antibiotic and painkiller. Because his back leg wasn't improving as the vet would have hoped he took a culture and it's come back as MRSA. Taking the culture seems to have brought the infection to a head and it's now clear that there is a lot of puss on both sides of the leg (in the first few weeks it was just swollen), some started oozing out of one side of his leg yesterday and when we touched it (with gloves because of the MRSA) a lot poured out quite quickly. Our vet doesn't seem keen to drain the leg which we would be happy to do now that we can see there is infection.

Has anyone's bun had MRSA? Is there a way back for him? He's happy and perky and eating, you wouldn't know anything was wrong with him and he can use the back leg again now and is happily hopping around the garden, so we don't want to give up on him just yet. We are handling him with gloves when we give him medication etc because of the MRSA risk.

Any advice gratefully received.
 
I haven't dealt with this but this link has info on a general staph infection in rabbits and it's treatment.
http://wildpro.twycrosszoo.org/S/00dis/Bacterial/Staphylococcosis.htm

But I would say your best hope is if you aren't currently seeing a rabbit specialist, I would recommend doing so. You have several very good ones in your country depending on your general location. Here are a few that I'm aware of: Molly Varga, Marie Kubiak, Richard Saunders. And these are some very experienced rabbit vets: Iain Cope, John Chitty, Mark Rowland, Aidan Rafferty.

Also here's a list of recommended rabbit savvy vets.
https://www.harcourt-brown.co.uk/ve...-by-rabbit-owners/vets-owners-recommendations
 
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Whereabouts are you lottiepatt? I’m also in UK. I agree a rabbit savvy vet is your best bet right now
 
Following up on JBun's post: Molly Varga wrote the book on rabbit medicine. It looks like you can have your vet contact her here for a consult (lots of specialists can't speak with pet owners directly):

http://mollyvargavet.co.uk/contact-molly/

According to her site,

"Molly now heads the exciting new specialist exotic pets service at Rutlland House Referral Hospital in St Helens, Merseyside."
 
Thanks all for your help, it was much appreciated. Our vet did contact Molly Varga who suggested the antibiotic he was on when I typed the above message. In the end we decided to operate in the hope of draining all the abscesses but when they opened his leg up it had gone into the bone and our vet said the best thing to do was to let him go, which is so very upsetting that I've just tried not to think about it. Our other rabbit died just a week later, he had seemed ok in himself but think he must have been missing his little friend (he was nine and had never had any health problems unlike our little Pierre) :( :(
 
I’m so sorry to hear that, you definitely did the right thing but it’s such a hard decision to make :( all my love to you in this sad time :(
 

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