Concerned about new bunny :/

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Jordan

Jordan

Active Member
Joined
Oct 16, 2009
Messages
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Location
Crete, Nebraska, USA
Hello,
I got a new rabbit last week. She is very timid and won't let me touch her or anything yet. She will come up to me, sniff me, then run away haha. Anyway, I just lost a rabbit to an upper respiratory infection. She was only 7 months old and had been sick for 5 of them. I took her to so many different vets and tried different antibiotics, but I couldn't save her. My grandma bought me a new rabbit thinking it would help me deal with the loss of my first bun but I'm a little concerned about her. She breathes very fast, pretty much all the time. I'm pretty sure it isn't heat, I keep my apartment at 70-72 degrees. I heard her sneeze a couple times in a row yesterday and then again today. She doesn't really have any noticeable discharge from the nose or eyes. She acts normal from what I can tell, I've neverhad a healthy rabbit to compare her behavior to, but she is eating andruns around quite a bit. Is this normal? I don't know if I'm just being paranoid because I lost a rabbit to this before or if it is really something I should be concerned about.

Thanks for any help! :)
 
She sounds okay but better to get a vet to do a full checkup for new rabbits. It will save you a LOT of trouble in the future. If you catch things early it will be easy to fix before it does permanent damage.
 
Hi Jordan, can you put your location in your profile?

Rabbits can have allergies or at least sneeze from the dust in litter, hay or pellets. What brands are you using? Are you at the bottom of the bag(s) or anything like that?

But they can also have pesky respiratory infections referred to as 'snuffles' -- although the main sign is white snot. Is that what your other rabbit had?

I'm surprised you lost your other one, it usually is controllable. What drugs did your vet(s) try?

You may have had a rabbit with a 'challenged' immune system which can happen when they're taken from their mothers' too soon -- they're more susceptible to infections, etc -- or maybe naturally underdeveloped and/or she just failed to thrive from the time she was a baby. Sorry you went through that.

Where did you get your first rabbit, and where did the second one come from?


sas :clover:
 
Oh yeah, sorryI live in Crete, Nebraska lol. The litter I'm using for her is paper based, I don't remember for sure what it is called, carefresh? I think. The pellets and hay are both Oxbow and I bought brand new bags of everything when I got her.

My first rabbit did have snuffles. She was on Albon for about a month, but it didn't do anything for her so they switched her to Baytril. She was on that on and off for about 4 and a half months. As soon as she was off it she'd get sick again and wouldn't eat. The last antibiotic they gave me was Azitromycin. That seemed to help her A LOT. She was better than she had ever been. She died suddenly a week or two after she was off the azitromycin. One minute she was running and jumping around her cage wanting me to let her out, but I had togo to classand when I came back less than an hour laterto let her out, she was dead :(. The last vet I took her to, the one who perscribed the azithromycin, said there was no reason she should have been sick for as long as she was. He told me either she was just really stressed out all the time for some reason or she just had a bad immune system. She never really seemed to be stressed at all, I mean she used to run up and jump into my arms to get me to hold her lol, so she must have had a bad immune system I guess. I miss her a lot and I just want to make sure that I catch it earlier if it happens with this rabbit.

I got my first rabbit from Earl May, I don't know if they have those all over or if they're just in Nebraska but it's more of a garden store than anything. They always have birds and some random small animals at the ones where I live. Kind of a weird place to buy a rabbit, I know, but she was an impulse buy. I saw her the day they brought her in and she was just too cute lol.

The new rabbit came from another store like Earl May. I was walking through it with my grandma and saw they had rabbits so I went to check them out. They were sitting in a corner in an old rustywire cage. I felt really bad for them, so I figured I might as well save one of them and bought her. I realize that this is probably just asking for trouble, but I couldn't just walk away.
 
I would have your new bunny vet checked. Just to be on the safe side. (ecspecially with the sneezing)

I always get my new bunnies vet checked.

I hope your new bunny is ok :)
 
With some types of bacterial infections, they have to stay on the meds for life.

They tend to refer to them all as 'pasturella', but if could be another type of bacteria like Bordetella. Different drugs work on different infections. Vets will usually try something right away but also do a culture and sensitivity test to be able to prescribe the exact right drug for that bacteria.

From what I've read, the Albon is pretty useless and the infection comes back even worse when its stopped. Rabbit bugs are becoming resistent to Baytil even if it was the right choice in the past. If the azithromycin (Zithromax) worked (which I think may indicate a Bordetella infection), but they really have to stay on it long term.

With antibiotics, Vets may prescribe it for seven days just to see if its doing anything, but once it seems to be working, they have to stay on that drug for at least two weeks after the symptoms are totally gone. If it comes back after that, they may have to be on meds for life.

I'd stick with the last Vet for your current bunny. Zithromax was a good call.

How long after your last bunny's death did you get the new bunny? I'm not sure how long the bacteria can remain infectious around the house, but that's something to look at.

This may or may not be related, but pet stores will often buy 'rabbit mill' bunnies who come with a lot of issues because the younger they are, the better they sell. Even if they don't survive past the first year. :(

Anyway, here's hoping its just dust.

Here's some more info:

http://www.medirabbit.com/EN/Respiratory/Bacterial/URI.pdf

sas :clover:
 
Umm, I got the new one probably about a week after my first died. I bleached pretty much everything that she could get into and used clorox wipes/spray on everything that couldn't be bleached so hopefully I killed whatever was left of it in the house.

Yeah, I could see the bunny mill thing. I work with a puppy mill rescue group here and that was actually one of my first thoughts when I saw that cage the rabbits were in. Itwas in the same condition as thecages we get our mill dogs in :/. I knew that there was probably a good chance she would get sick, I just want to catch it earlier than I did with my last bun if she does.

Thank you so much for all of your help! This forum has helped me so much, I probably would have lost my first bun much sooner if not for the help of the people here and I am so thankful for all of the advice :)
 
No matter where the first bun was from, she could have been a "failure to thrive" bunny. Some rabbits in a litter will have some unexplained issue, in particular, a weaker immune system than others. It happens sometimes with other animals and even people too. If she was weaned too early, that could also contribute to a weaker immune system. If the immune system is weak, it can't fight things off, even if antibiotics are present in some cases. The antibiotics only do part of the work of clearing up an infection, the immune system does the rest.

If the new bunny is from a similar place, she too could have been weaned too early, or be from a bad line of rabbits--one where the kits don't do very well because of some unknown genetic predisposition for a weak immune system.

A lot of bunnies sold in stores do not come from breeders who care about their animals like the breeders on this forum do. I understand why you got them, and a lot of people have this happen to them too. A lot of people give up on bunnies altogether because of one bad experience, and it's good that you have decided to try again, and give this bunny a good life.

I hope with vet care and aggressive antibiotics immediately used, she'll be fine. This time you know what antibiotics to ask for and you knew what to look for in her getting ill. It's good that you've caught it early.
 
Yesterday I noticed that she wasn't eating nearly as much as she was before so I made her an appointment with the vet this afternoon. I feel bad because I know it's going to stress her out a lot, she is very skittish still, not to mention that it isn't even ten degrees out today lol but I know she needs to go as soon as possible.

I'm hoping that the vet will know what's going on. I alwaysfeel like I'm crazywhen I take them in and they tell me there isn't anything wrong when I know there is lol, but we'll see. :)
 
The first thing he did was check her teeth and the top and bottom incisors weren't aligned. He thought it was because the top ones were too long and the jaw arranged itself to accomodate them so he clipped them and gave her some steroids to help get the muscles in her jaw back to normal. She also had a little bit of a fever so he gave her some antibiotics. She is already acting a lot better. She's been eating all evening so I'm really really hoping it was just the teeth I don't want to go through the whole URI thing again lol.
:)
 
I find this pretty confusing. Are you sure it was a steroid? Steroids are an immune system suppressant, not good with infections. I don't know what steriods do to the muscles, but if he was looking for anti-inflammatory action, Metacam is an NSAID - Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug -- and it the usual pain med prescribed for rabbits. It does the trick without compromising the infection.

Is this the same Vet that prescribed the Zithromax?

Glad she's feeling better, anyway! :)

ETA: Not my area of expertise, I'm inquiring about what steroids do because I really don't know.


sas :clover:
 
He told me it was a steroid because I made him explain to me why she needed it before I let him give it to her lol. I didn't know it surpressed the immune system though. Hopefully that will wear off fast :/ I'll check the receipt to see what it was called when I get out of my lab today. Yes it was the same vet that prescribed the azithromycin. She had eaten more than she was before this morning but still not as much as I'd like to see but she does act like she's feeling better. Hopefully she will be back to her normal self by the end of the week.
 
Well, I'm hoping that because it was an intramuscular shot, most of the steroid injected acted locally on the muscle instead of spreading to other sites in the body. I haven't heard of steroid shots in bunnies before, but it may be ok.

It's good that she's feeling better--the pain will take a little while to wear off, plus she has to get used to the different feel of her teeth now, but I think she'll be tip-top soon.
 
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