Oscars Myxi Diary
I have decided to put down a few things in this document hopefully to offer some assistance and support if you have the misfortune to be dealing with a rabbit who has got Myxomatosis I can only assume that if you are reading this you have some interest in animals so get the animal thing plenty dont and would probably laugh or say what a idiot if they read this. I think if you get an animal no matter what it is you are endebted to them to look after them and do the best for them, and if it means time and effort then you do it they are entitled to a life as much as anyone.
I would like to make it clear that this is not as a what to do guide I am in no way an expert or speak with any authority in regards to Rabbits, the one I will write about is the only Rabbit I have ever had any dealings with. I hope that my account can act as a reference for ideas of what I did and how it helped. I am sure that there will be some people who will read this and say that was wrong or I wouldnt do that, and thats fine this is just my version of events and what I did, So please take this as just that & dont quote me.
Having just gone through it I really struggled to find anything in laymans terms on the internet i.e. written by an owner about their animal and what they did and how it helped and what happened. I hope this helps I really do.
Oscar before it all kicked off!
It all started on a Saturday morning at the beginning of November, I went into the garden to rake up some leave and let the rabbits out for a run around. They live in a hutch in the garden, luckily its an enclosed garden so they do have a lot of free time to run around, bit too much as they have tunnelled under the hutch and no doubt I have a labyrinth of tunnels criss crossing my lawn! Oscar is a 4 year old lop eared something or other, I said I had no knowledge of Rabbits, he lives with Carrot who is slightly older. I opened the hutch door so they could create some havoc, carrot ran out but Oscar was sat at the back of the hutch not looking too fussed. Normally he is first out and straight down the hole. I could see straight away that the area around his eye was swollen, it was like an eruption of the skin it was very pink and angry looking. It completely encased his eye and look nasty, I could see most of his eye so he still had his vision. I picked him up out of the hutch and could see his other eye was the same. I checked him out underneath and his gland was swollen too, I could feel lumps on his back and head and behind his ears. I put him down and went into the house to do some research although I kind of knew what was happening. I put the symptoms into the search engine and quickly got the answer back, I went back out to see him again and he was hunched up against the garden wall. This time I could see his eyes had got worse and were almost completely closed over. I called the vet straight away not being too hopeful as it was a Saturday, and expecting to get a call back Monday message, to my surprise they were open and I was able to get him booked in that afternoon. I went back out again to him and put him back into his hutch I thought I would try and keep him quiet, Carrot hopped in after him and sat with him. I noticed that she was licking his eyes and he seemed more that happy with this so I guess it was soothing for him. On seeing this I called back the vet and booked her in too in case any cross contamination had taken place.
I had to wait a while to get to the vet and it was the middle of the afternoon before the appointment came round, I put them both in the carry case and headed off. Into the consulting room and got him out for the vet to have a look, it was a weird feeling as I knew what Oscar had and what the vet was probably going to say. The one thing I did notice when he was on the table was that his eyes had seemed to had gone down slightly. The vet had a look checked him all over and looked at me and did that thing were someone sucks the air through their teeth and said yeah its Myxamotosis. It felt horrible, I did a quick bit of reading whilst counting down the hours waiting to get him to the vet and it basically what I read was a painful death awaits or have them put to sleep. What a choice! Made even harder to as I had missed his inoculation this year, we had moved house and I never got round to it how bad did I, and to this day feel. The vet took his temperature and offered the first glimmer of hope, he was where he should be on the scale so that was good, she also said that as he had previously had been inoculated he would have some resistance to the virus however the odds were stacked against him. She said the options were to see how he goes for a few days or PTS, I said lets give him a chance. I will always take the advice of professionals and if the vet had said there and then PTS I would have I would never have let him suffer intolerably, I felt that he seemed ok (within reason) and it had to be worth a run. You know your animal better than anyone habits and mannerisms and I know him, I could see he hadnt given up and was up for a fight. The vet said, see how he is for 3 days then bring him back however you will know if he needs to be bought back sooner. I had carrot looked at and she seemed ok, no visible symptoms and everything appeared normal, I had her vaccinated there and then. The vet said keep him warm and separated from the other rabbit, and keep an eye on his eating and pooping, if either stops or changes then rabbit scan be in trouble. She said they go downhill so quickly and eating is so important to their well being, she gave him an anti inflammatory injection and prescribed anti bio tics to be given orally via a syringe. The anti bio tics were to be given twice daily, she recommended mixing the drug with apple juice or Ribena just to give it a sweeter taste as it can be pretty gross to drink neat. Armed with thedrugs and information I went back home, I managed to dig out the old indoor cage we bought years before and gave it a good clean out and filled it with clean bedding and hay and put it in the dining room where he could be kept warm and that was that. Oscar has always enjoyed his food so I am well aware of his favourites, what I decided to do may well split the experts now but I had my theory. I decided to give him access to food as much as possible, I filled his little bowl with curly kale tomato carrot apple and some of his nuggets that he has, I also made sure he had as much hay as he could wish for. I then basically sat and watched him and tried to encourage him to eat, my theory was that if he is going to fight to keep going then he will need as much fuel as possible. I thought if his system had to go into overdrive then lets fuel him up. Soon as his bowl was empty or didnt look appetising I would fill it with fresh food, & of course his water bottle was changed daily. I started to look on the net for any hints, the mains ones I found were keep them warm around 21c, keep them fed and watered and make sure they keep pooping.
His anti bio tics were to start straight away so that was my next hurdle, having never done anything like it before I did struggle for a while. Initially I had him cradled in my arm and I squirted it using the syringe into his mouth although I did look as some of it was going in one side and out the other. Oscar was quite subdued when I was doing this just letting me do it, he did look at me as if to say what are you doing I put him to bed that first night with plenty to eat and drink and in the warm, I put an old towel over the top of his cage to keep him dark and quiet and hoped he would have a good night.
It was about 2am when I had to go and see how he was, I crept in a lifted the towel he was in the corner of the cage one eye open. His food bowl was still pretty full I guess he just wasnt used to having food on tap, I closed the door and went back to bed. I had decided to give him his anti bio tics as regular as I could so at 7am and 7pm he had his drug, after another pathetic attempt to administer it I had a look on the internet. I found the bunny burrito video on that video website (not sure if I can mention the name) it basically involved wrapping them up in a towel it keeps them still and easy to manoeuvre and its so much easier to give them the syringe when they are on their feet. I think initially I was trying to go in at the front, but two big teeth kinda got in the way, my trick was to go in at the side he would take it much easier also I would smoother the end of the syringe in apple sauce he liked that! Every little helped. Oscars mouth and nose had swollen up quite badly again it looked like his skin was about to burst, I thought he would have difficulty in eating and not knowing exactly how the virus would affect him I wanted to make it as easy as possible to his food. I mashed up his food as much as I could I even tried soaking his pellets to soften them up but that didnt seem to go down too well. I gave him carrot peelings, I thought this would be easier to eat and it was he enjoyed scoffing those. I gave him broccoli and curly kale, I was a little worried that he wasnt drinking enough so I soaked them is water to at least get some fluid into him, for some reason he has never really drunk a lot, some days I wouldnt see any change in the level of his water bottle, I just wanted to keep his fluid intake as high as I could.
Nothing really changed for those first few days, I fed him, checked on him constantly, and thankfully the food was going down and coming out the other end. The area around his eyes was still very swollen as was the base of his ears, I noticed that his nose and mouth were now starting to swell up it looked liked the skin was being pulled so tight it would burst at any moment. He kept on eating didnt look like hewas in pain and seemed his usual self, we got to 3 days down the line so I took him back to the vet. I saw a different Vet and again she checked him over and came to the same conclusion as the last, I did mention that he had been given an anti inflammatory injection on our first visit and wandered if he could have anything else to take to help him. The vet prescribed some pain killer/anti inflame that had to be given once a day and preferably at the same time each day not easy when you are a shift worker. It was to be given the same as the anti biotocs so mixed with some sweet juice She didnt really say a great deal in the consultation, just carry on what we were doing make sure he keeps on eating and drinking and pooping and come back in a week. I got the impression she was thinking that any day soon he will go downhill and that will be the end of him. So feeling a little better we trudged off back home to carry on with our routine. I didnt want to take any photos of him, it didnt seem right and to be honest I was expecting him to go downhill any moment. However after the 2nd visit to the vet I thought it might help with seeing how his condition changed.
Oscar about a week in his eyes had seemed to settle and his nose and mouth starting to swell up. You can see the pink around his nose and mouth where the swelling was stretching his skin.
I kept an eye on him over the next few days and I did see that he was starting to come out in leisions over the top of his eyes on his nose at the base of his ears and underneath around his bits and pieces. it just looked so horrid Icouod only describe them as little pox eruptions. His nose looked like little chocolate button and his eyes and underneath like an outbreak of warts. he was ok within himself as far as i could tell, he certainy wasnt giving up so i decided he would get as much effort as i could give him. Thinking about his diet i wanted to make sure he got as much of the right stuff as possible, i had started to go into the garden at all hours and collect grass for him and made sure he had as much as he wanted first thing in the morning and last thing at night and in between too i would go onto the front lawn and rip up handfulls of the stuff, god knows what the neighbours thought, there were times when i had worked a late shift and been out there at 1am.
Oscar Tucking into some freshly plucked grass
Getting ready for his morning routine
Oscar seemed to have settled down and although he had the lesions getting bigger by the day his health and well being was encouraging we were now in a good routine. i had taken some advice and started to clean the effected areas i was using some salt water and cotton wool, i tried the best i could to soothe the area around his eyes and mouth and his underneath. I made sure I used a clean piece of cotton wool for each area I would do this twice a day and after a few attempts Oscar seemed to warm to it and would sit there without making a fuss. Infact on a few occassions I could tell he liked it as he would nudge my hand when i stopped almost saying 'come on keep going' this was encouraging. I am pretty sure it was about 11 days when when we were next scheduled to see the vet again it was a different one but he was amazed by his progress he said having read his notes he wasn't expecting to find him doing so well, Oscars leisions had seemed to settle down he had all the lumps but they had stared to scab over, the only slight issue was the leisions underneath these were looking red and sore a bit skanky and they weren't scabbing. The vet said to apply some sudacream as this would help to heal them, he also took him off the painkiller/anti inflammatory but kept the anti biotic going.The little tip for applying the sudacream I found was to use a q-tip /ear buddy these are good for getting a small amount and then being able to apply it directly to the area without using fingers. I could tell Oscar was starting to get bored so i tried to keep him entertained, he was let out now in the house to bounce around an I tried to make some cardboard box mazes and got him some toys from P@H just to give him something to think about. Poor old Carrot his hutch mate was missing him no doubt so I did bring her in one night just so they could see each other, after a few seconds he did what any boy rabbit would do and they then sat next to each other for a few hours so at least they still got on. i was starting to think at this time that we were on the right path he wasn't getting any worse we were 2 weeks down the line. The vet had said that after about 4 weeks Rabbits if still going strong should have fought off the virus so we set ourselves the goal of getting there, and we did, the scabs which had now formed were starting to lift I could see some of his features starting emerge from under the scabs. We had another trip to the vet, this was just a check up really and the vet was pleased in fact he did say that Oscar was only the 2nd bun he had dealt with that had got this far and he was beating the odds, this was so encouraging and I was determined to keep up the efforts. We came off the Baytril he said if he anything looks like its getting infected then we will go back on it but it was time to see how he got on without it. He also said that the next visit which was to be the first week of january he would give Oscar his Myxi jab to bolster him up, so it looked like a good Christmas for Oscar. He was becoming a permanent fixture in the house now I would catch him watching the TV whilst laid flat out. I was giving him some outdoor time with Carrot just to keep them familiar with each other and they seemed to be getting on fine.
MORE TO FOLLOW
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I have decided to put down a few things in this document hopefully to offer some assistance and support if you have the misfortune to be dealing with a rabbit who has got Myxomatosis I can only assume that if you are reading this you have some interest in animals so get the animal thing plenty dont and would probably laugh or say what a idiot if they read this. I think if you get an animal no matter what it is you are endebted to them to look after them and do the best for them, and if it means time and effort then you do it they are entitled to a life as much as anyone.
I would like to make it clear that this is not as a what to do guide I am in no way an expert or speak with any authority in regards to Rabbits, the one I will write about is the only Rabbit I have ever had any dealings with. I hope that my account can act as a reference for ideas of what I did and how it helped. I am sure that there will be some people who will read this and say that was wrong or I wouldnt do that, and thats fine this is just my version of events and what I did, So please take this as just that & dont quote me.
Having just gone through it I really struggled to find anything in laymans terms on the internet i.e. written by an owner about their animal and what they did and how it helped and what happened. I hope this helps I really do.
Oscar before it all kicked off!
It all started on a Saturday morning at the beginning of November, I went into the garden to rake up some leave and let the rabbits out for a run around. They live in a hutch in the garden, luckily its an enclosed garden so they do have a lot of free time to run around, bit too much as they have tunnelled under the hutch and no doubt I have a labyrinth of tunnels criss crossing my lawn! Oscar is a 4 year old lop eared something or other, I said I had no knowledge of Rabbits, he lives with Carrot who is slightly older. I opened the hutch door so they could create some havoc, carrot ran out but Oscar was sat at the back of the hutch not looking too fussed. Normally he is first out and straight down the hole. I could see straight away that the area around his eye was swollen, it was like an eruption of the skin it was very pink and angry looking. It completely encased his eye and look nasty, I could see most of his eye so he still had his vision. I picked him up out of the hutch and could see his other eye was the same. I checked him out underneath and his gland was swollen too, I could feel lumps on his back and head and behind his ears. I put him down and went into the house to do some research although I kind of knew what was happening. I put the symptoms into the search engine and quickly got the answer back, I went back out to see him again and he was hunched up against the garden wall. This time I could see his eyes had got worse and were almost completely closed over. I called the vet straight away not being too hopeful as it was a Saturday, and expecting to get a call back Monday message, to my surprise they were open and I was able to get him booked in that afternoon. I went back out again to him and put him back into his hutch I thought I would try and keep him quiet, Carrot hopped in after him and sat with him. I noticed that she was licking his eyes and he seemed more that happy with this so I guess it was soothing for him. On seeing this I called back the vet and booked her in too in case any cross contamination had taken place.
I had to wait a while to get to the vet and it was the middle of the afternoon before the appointment came round, I put them both in the carry case and headed off. Into the consulting room and got him out for the vet to have a look, it was a weird feeling as I knew what Oscar had and what the vet was probably going to say. The one thing I did notice when he was on the table was that his eyes had seemed to had gone down slightly. The vet had a look checked him all over and looked at me and did that thing were someone sucks the air through their teeth and said yeah its Myxamotosis. It felt horrible, I did a quick bit of reading whilst counting down the hours waiting to get him to the vet and it basically what I read was a painful death awaits or have them put to sleep. What a choice! Made even harder to as I had missed his inoculation this year, we had moved house and I never got round to it how bad did I, and to this day feel. The vet took his temperature and offered the first glimmer of hope, he was where he should be on the scale so that was good, she also said that as he had previously had been inoculated he would have some resistance to the virus however the odds were stacked against him. She said the options were to see how he goes for a few days or PTS, I said lets give him a chance. I will always take the advice of professionals and if the vet had said there and then PTS I would have I would never have let him suffer intolerably, I felt that he seemed ok (within reason) and it had to be worth a run. You know your animal better than anyone habits and mannerisms and I know him, I could see he hadnt given up and was up for a fight. The vet said, see how he is for 3 days then bring him back however you will know if he needs to be bought back sooner. I had carrot looked at and she seemed ok, no visible symptoms and everything appeared normal, I had her vaccinated there and then. The vet said keep him warm and separated from the other rabbit, and keep an eye on his eating and pooping, if either stops or changes then rabbit scan be in trouble. She said they go downhill so quickly and eating is so important to their well being, she gave him an anti inflammatory injection and prescribed anti bio tics to be given orally via a syringe. The anti bio tics were to be given twice daily, she recommended mixing the drug with apple juice or Ribena just to give it a sweeter taste as it can be pretty gross to drink neat. Armed with thedrugs and information I went back home, I managed to dig out the old indoor cage we bought years before and gave it a good clean out and filled it with clean bedding and hay and put it in the dining room where he could be kept warm and that was that. Oscar has always enjoyed his food so I am well aware of his favourites, what I decided to do may well split the experts now but I had my theory. I decided to give him access to food as much as possible, I filled his little bowl with curly kale tomato carrot apple and some of his nuggets that he has, I also made sure he had as much hay as he could wish for. I then basically sat and watched him and tried to encourage him to eat, my theory was that if he is going to fight to keep going then he will need as much fuel as possible. I thought if his system had to go into overdrive then lets fuel him up. Soon as his bowl was empty or didnt look appetising I would fill it with fresh food, & of course his water bottle was changed daily. I started to look on the net for any hints, the mains ones I found were keep them warm around 21c, keep them fed and watered and make sure they keep pooping.
His anti bio tics were to start straight away so that was my next hurdle, having never done anything like it before I did struggle for a while. Initially I had him cradled in my arm and I squirted it using the syringe into his mouth although I did look as some of it was going in one side and out the other. Oscar was quite subdued when I was doing this just letting me do it, he did look at me as if to say what are you doing I put him to bed that first night with plenty to eat and drink and in the warm, I put an old towel over the top of his cage to keep him dark and quiet and hoped he would have a good night.
It was about 2am when I had to go and see how he was, I crept in a lifted the towel he was in the corner of the cage one eye open. His food bowl was still pretty full I guess he just wasnt used to having food on tap, I closed the door and went back to bed. I had decided to give him his anti bio tics as regular as I could so at 7am and 7pm he had his drug, after another pathetic attempt to administer it I had a look on the internet. I found the bunny burrito video on that video website (not sure if I can mention the name) it basically involved wrapping them up in a towel it keeps them still and easy to manoeuvre and its so much easier to give them the syringe when they are on their feet. I think initially I was trying to go in at the front, but two big teeth kinda got in the way, my trick was to go in at the side he would take it much easier also I would smoother the end of the syringe in apple sauce he liked that! Every little helped. Oscars mouth and nose had swollen up quite badly again it looked like his skin was about to burst, I thought he would have difficulty in eating and not knowing exactly how the virus would affect him I wanted to make it as easy as possible to his food. I mashed up his food as much as I could I even tried soaking his pellets to soften them up but that didnt seem to go down too well. I gave him carrot peelings, I thought this would be easier to eat and it was he enjoyed scoffing those. I gave him broccoli and curly kale, I was a little worried that he wasnt drinking enough so I soaked them is water to at least get some fluid into him, for some reason he has never really drunk a lot, some days I wouldnt see any change in the level of his water bottle, I just wanted to keep his fluid intake as high as I could.
Nothing really changed for those first few days, I fed him, checked on him constantly, and thankfully the food was going down and coming out the other end. The area around his eyes was still very swollen as was the base of his ears, I noticed that his nose and mouth were now starting to swell up it looked liked the skin was being pulled so tight it would burst at any moment. He kept on eating didnt look like hewas in pain and seemed his usual self, we got to 3 days down the line so I took him back to the vet. I saw a different Vet and again she checked him over and came to the same conclusion as the last, I did mention that he had been given an anti inflammatory injection on our first visit and wandered if he could have anything else to take to help him. The vet prescribed some pain killer/anti inflame that had to be given once a day and preferably at the same time each day not easy when you are a shift worker. It was to be given the same as the anti biotocs so mixed with some sweet juice She didnt really say a great deal in the consultation, just carry on what we were doing make sure he keeps on eating and drinking and pooping and come back in a week. I got the impression she was thinking that any day soon he will go downhill and that will be the end of him. So feeling a little better we trudged off back home to carry on with our routine. I didnt want to take any photos of him, it didnt seem right and to be honest I was expecting him to go downhill any moment. However after the 2nd visit to the vet I thought it might help with seeing how his condition changed.
Oscar about a week in his eyes had seemed to settle and his nose and mouth starting to swell up. You can see the pink around his nose and mouth where the swelling was stretching his skin.
I kept an eye on him over the next few days and I did see that he was starting to come out in leisions over the top of his eyes on his nose at the base of his ears and underneath around his bits and pieces. it just looked so horrid Icouod only describe them as little pox eruptions. His nose looked like little chocolate button and his eyes and underneath like an outbreak of warts. he was ok within himself as far as i could tell, he certainy wasnt giving up so i decided he would get as much effort as i could give him. Thinking about his diet i wanted to make sure he got as much of the right stuff as possible, i had started to go into the garden at all hours and collect grass for him and made sure he had as much as he wanted first thing in the morning and last thing at night and in between too i would go onto the front lawn and rip up handfulls of the stuff, god knows what the neighbours thought, there were times when i had worked a late shift and been out there at 1am.
Oscar Tucking into some freshly plucked grass
Getting ready for his morning routine
Oscar seemed to have settled down and although he had the lesions getting bigger by the day his health and well being was encouraging we were now in a good routine. i had taken some advice and started to clean the effected areas i was using some salt water and cotton wool, i tried the best i could to soothe the area around his eyes and mouth and his underneath. I made sure I used a clean piece of cotton wool for each area I would do this twice a day and after a few attempts Oscar seemed to warm to it and would sit there without making a fuss. Infact on a few occassions I could tell he liked it as he would nudge my hand when i stopped almost saying 'come on keep going' this was encouraging. I am pretty sure it was about 11 days when when we were next scheduled to see the vet again it was a different one but he was amazed by his progress he said having read his notes he wasn't expecting to find him doing so well, Oscars leisions had seemed to settle down he had all the lumps but they had stared to scab over, the only slight issue was the leisions underneath these were looking red and sore a bit skanky and they weren't scabbing. The vet said to apply some sudacream as this would help to heal them, he also took him off the painkiller/anti inflammatory but kept the anti biotic going.The little tip for applying the sudacream I found was to use a q-tip /ear buddy these are good for getting a small amount and then being able to apply it directly to the area without using fingers. I could tell Oscar was starting to get bored so i tried to keep him entertained, he was let out now in the house to bounce around an I tried to make some cardboard box mazes and got him some toys from P@H just to give him something to think about. Poor old Carrot his hutch mate was missing him no doubt so I did bring her in one night just so they could see each other, after a few seconds he did what any boy rabbit would do and they then sat next to each other for a few hours so at least they still got on. i was starting to think at this time that we were on the right path he wasn't getting any worse we were 2 weeks down the line. The vet had said that after about 4 weeks Rabbits if still going strong should have fought off the virus so we set ourselves the goal of getting there, and we did, the scabs which had now formed were starting to lift I could see some of his features starting emerge from under the scabs. We had another trip to the vet, this was just a check up really and the vet was pleased in fact he did say that Oscar was only the 2nd bun he had dealt with that had got this far and he was beating the odds, this was so encouraging and I was determined to keep up the efforts. We came off the Baytril he said if he anything looks like its getting infected then we will go back on it but it was time to see how he got on without it. He also said that the next visit which was to be the first week of january he would give Oscar his Myxi jab to bolster him up, so it looked like a good Christmas for Oscar. He was becoming a permanent fixture in the house now I would catch him watching the TV whilst laid flat out. I was giving him some outdoor time with Carrot just to keep them familiar with each other and they seemed to be getting on fine.
MORE TO FOLLOW
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