Matting around eyes

[iLuvMyLilBuns]

So my rabbit was recently diagnosed with syphilis and is being treated, he has his last injection of penicillin next week. All the scabs are gone but he has matting around his eyes. His fur is matted and stuck together with white discharge and it's hard, you can't really tell in the picture. (he's had the matting and white discharge for a while) I tried to wipe the area with a baby wipe but it didn't really seem to help. Is this just because he had scabs around his eyes and they were irritated or could it possibly be an infection? Is there anything I should do or will it just go away? I do have eye drops I could give him.

 

[jcottonl02]

I may be completely wrong but here's my opinion.
I doubt the matting will go away even after the discharge has gone, because once fur is matted, as it grows it still seems to matt until you get rid of the initial matting.
When my Benji had his inscisors removed, his eyes were streaming for days and he had a lots of discharge. It went crusty and hard and for the life of my I couldn't get it off. So on his 2 weekly post op check up the get shaved around his eyes for me and they've been brilliant ever since.
Having said that, Benji lets you do absolutely anything, so he stayed very still. If your bun can stay still enough then I'd definitely recommend getting your vet to do this. It will give the fur around his eyes a clean slate to grow properly without the hinderance of the matting and hard discharge still there.
Hope this helps
Jen

 

[iLuvMyLilBuns]

can I do that myself?

 

[jcottonl02]

I personally wouldn't recommend it to be honest. I'm a professional dog groomer and use clippers every day and I don't think I would be brave enough to shave around benjis eyes myself purely for the fact that if something DID happen at least if I was at a vets then they could treat the cut etc immediately.
Rabbits have extremely thin skin and are very easy to nick.

Jen

 

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So my rabbit was recently diagnosed with syphilis and is being treated, he has his last injection of penicillin next week. All the scabs are gone but he has matting around his eyes. His fur is matted and stuck together with white discharge and it's hard, you can't really tell in the picture. (he's had the matting and white discharge for a while) I tried to wipe the area with a baby wipe but it didn't really seem to help. Is this just because he had scabs around his eyes and they were irritated or could it possibly be an infection? Is there anything I should do or will it just go away? I do have eye drops I could give him.

Since there is a white discharge I would be worried he has conjunctivitis. First thing you could try is a simple homemade eyewash for conjunctivitis. Boil a cup of water, put 1/4 teaspoon of sea salt in it (basically this is home made saline). Then put two teabags in it and let it steep for a while. The tea should be either, black tea or green tea. The tanines in the tea are antibacterial and anti-inflammatory so it will help clear up conjunctivitis. Soak a cotton ball with it and drip it into the eye. I would also drip it around the matted fur to try to loosen the matts and use dry cotton balls to dry it all off again.

If you don't see a difference after 2 days of doing this, then I think you really do need to get some eyedrops medicated with antibiotics. One antibiotic medicated eyedrop you might be able to get over the counter is Terrimycin, I think they have it at feed stores. If you can't get that I think you should go to the vet.

To get the fur around his eye clean you could try just the saline solution and use a soft flat watercolor or acrylic paint brush to try to gently clean/brush the fur, and kind of brush it out with the paint brush. That's what I did when my rabbits fur got yucky around his eye. The paint brush I used looked like the flat one in this picture. It was a flat soft brush.

 

[iLuvMyLilBuns]

The vet first told me he had conjunctivitis so I have eye drops to treat that. He had scabs on his eyes and mouth and genital area so we realized it was syphilis so he could also have conjunctivitis. I'll start giving him the eye drops.