(mostly resolved) Maggie Mae - major diaherrea & fur loss on back half of body

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TinysMom

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Location
, Texas, USA
Maggie Mae hasn't been eating well for the past 3-4 days and the day before yesterday I gave her ONE baby carrot at suppertime (evening) to do the treat test and see if she'd eat. She not only ate the carrot - she ate all her food that night.

Last night she ate about 2/3 of her food.

I went to feed her tonight and noticed that her back end is COVERED in feces - sorta half diaherrea and half not...I mean - it isn't runny - but it is all damp and stuck to her.

In addition - I noticed that the back half of her back has no fur on it.

She is about to get a "butt-bath" and then some treatment.

My current plan of treatment is to give her some canned pumpkin with a bit of pro-bios mixed in it. In addition she has unlimited hay. I'm going to add a tiny bit of vanilla to her water.

Here is the form I'm filling out:

- Location Texas

- Description (Breed, color., weight) 3 pound female magpie lionhead

- Age 3- 3 1/2

- spayed/neutered? No

- Notes on Fecal and Urinary Output
- are the bunny's poops and pees normal?
- When did they last use their litterbox?
- Any unusual behavior? In addition to the diaherrea mentioned above - she's moving as if her rear leg has some problems - but it could be because of the poop that is on it.

- Medical History -- has s/he been to the vet or been sick before? No
She did just have ivermectin 3 days ago for her ear mites that had started (but she's had that before with no reaction)


- Diet - what does your bunny eat? mainly pellets and hay with an occassional treat
- when and what did s/he eat last? last night

- movement - any unusual movements? Is s/he hopping normally? acting as if her rear leg is uncomfortable

- are there any plants, chocolate or other substances within reach? no

- has the rabbit been outdoors? no


She appears to be hydrated but I am thinking of dong some sub-q fluids - I need to ask Art first if he filled her water bottle today - if so - then she's had about 6-8 ounces to drink.

She is alert but what concerns me is that the poop has a strange odor. It doesn't smell like coccidia but it does smell like something is off. I know that sounds strange.

I may try to take photos after her bath.



Edited to add: I'm calling this "major" diaherrea based on the amount of poop and stuff that is stuck on her. However - she is alert and does look very hydrated so I'm not worried about dehydration at this point in time.
 
A secondary concern is - she is in the rabbitry and I don't know if this is something that would carry to the other rabbits. Her cage is a "double cage" where the two cages share one tray - so I am disinfecting that cage and the tray tonight and moving Triad to another spot overnight while things settle down.

She is in the 1/4 of the rabbitry that I DIDN'T get disinfected today - so of course I am KICKING myself...
 
I got about 1 cc of pumpkin in her (with probios in it) - but she didn't want anymore and we wanted to watch and see what she would do.

Robin has put her on the floor and she is walking around - and about every 2nd or 3rd step she flicks us off. Its hilarious really.

I notice she is holding one leg like it hurts a bit - and her privates are a bit swollen. However - there is no sign of sore hocks (affecting the leg/foot). She just tends to turn that one foot inward and hop a bit funny.

She is very alert - and I'm going to try to give her more pumpkin in a bit and see how that goes.
 
I am thinking that if this started at the time that you gave the ivermectin that it is possibly related ...that there may have beena slight variation in the dosage and possibly this has affected her.
She isn't really exhibiting the symtoms of ivermectin toxicity (except maybe the hind leg problems which isalso a symtom of e-cuniculi. A rabbit with toomuch ivermection would have ataxia and other neurological symptoms but diarrhea is not mentioned.)

You should have the vet run a fecal float on her and it is also a great idea to do the subqutaneous fluids. I would go very light on the pumpkin because to be honest this may exacerbate the diarrhea . Use only the amount to get the Probios in her.
I really don't know what you are dealing with so when you can disinfect and separate her it is best to do that
Depending on what is going on the vet may give you some metronidazole ( Flagyl) which acts as an anti-inflammatory in the gut.

Randy has also suggested tracking down people with horses to get some biosponge powder or paste which apparently absorbs the clostridum .



http://www.platinumperformance.com/animal/equine/products/productcategories/product.cfm?category_id=162
I really don't know what you are dealing with but right now it sounds as if you are doing everything right in terms of supportive treatment until you learn what it is.
I hope that she is better by morning
 
She is settled in the bathtub overnight on a towel and in a box to hide in if she wants (which she currently wants). She has pellets, a teaspoon still of the pumpkin, lots of hay and fresh water. She has been chewing on the hay some - not so much eating it - but chewing on it cause she was nervous. I will go check in on her later - the bathroom door is shut with the light on and the shower curtain partly closed to give her a sense of privacy.

I figure this way I can monitor her poops - she's isolated from everyone else - and it will be a bit easier to watch her.

When I went to catch her - she ran and ran and it took me about 3 minutes to catch her...since we'd had her on the floor walking around, etc. So she can't be THAT sick (yet).

I did notice that one ear looks like it *might* have a bit of puss way deep inside. I didn't mess with it - but that is the ear that had some mites down inside it - so I'm wondering if she has an infection going. To be honest- her ear smelled like there was an infection going (I smelled her after I noticed it).

It is her right rear leg that she's holding funny - not her left rear one. I'm going to check her over even better tomorrow but for now - she seemed stressed out enough that I wanted to give her some space.

I'll update everyone in the morning. The fur loss kinda surprises me - but when I looked at her later - I can see where it is sort of coming back in again.

I've been watching Triad now since he was caged next to her - no change in his behavior or poops...
 
I'm finally heading to bed after just checking on Maggie Mae....she had one kinda small (but not tiny) very black and very hard dry poop.

Still yet - it was a poop.

I almost made myself a bed on the bathroom floor to spend the night with her....in case she needed me - but I guess I feel ok now about going to bed and letting her be alone during the night.
 
Have you ever been worried about your rabbit and then felt so stupid when you realized part of the problem???

I was laying in bed last night (early this morning really - when I FINALLY got to bed)...and thinking about Zeus and wondering if he liked his food and topper (which I don't always give him) - when I REMEMBERED...

The night before last - Maggie Mae looked at her food and then me as if to say, "Is that ALL there is?"

I remembered she'd eaten all of her food after a baby carrot...but I was out of carrots- so I said, "ok..fine..I'll give you some of the topper for the flemish giants..".

DUH. Its very rich and it works fine on the flemish giants - it has calf manna and oatmeal and wheat germ and sunflower seeds and stuff. Their coats are gorgeous.

No wonder she only ate about 2/3 of her food - because she had the "topper" in addition to her food. I'm almost 100% sure that is what gave her the diaherrea.

Today she has slightly smaller than regular size poops - a bit darker than usual (but I am used to that with the calf manna) - and she's been devouring her hay along with some food - but she prefers her hay. She's also drinking well.

When I talked to Robin about her this morning - she reminded me that Maggie was going through a bad moult last week and when I brushed her - a bunch of her fur was coming out - and when I cleaned Maggie's cage last night - there was some fur in the back of the cage too....almost in a little nest.

My only concern now is her leg and the fact that I can see she has a bit of an infection in her ear - but I know how to deal with that.

I'm going to have her play some today and watch what she does with her leg.

But she's back to almost regular poops and has a bunch of them...so I'm happy.

I'm just kicking myself for having given her the "topper" for the flemish giants. I think I gave her about a tablespoon of it...maybe a heaping tablespoon.

NEVER AGAIN!




 
For the irritated area that was in contact with the feces, you can apply preparation H or an udder cream. I've heard that baby cornstarch can soothe feces-irritated skin as well, but I think a cream would be better--that's what I used on the boy I pet-sat.

Frida had a bit of diarrhea this weekend (it was cecal diarrhea, not fecal--could tell from the smell), and we gave her the usual hay, pedialyte, some gas meds, probiotic, and pumpkin. I think the pumpkin helped--although it has a bit of sugar, it's got so much wet fiber that it counter-balances the bad effect of the sugar. I'm not saying don't be cautious when using it in a diarrhea situation, of course.

I hope Maggie Mae's ok today--after you washed her leg did she still have the mobility issue? That kind of stuff makes me worry that she has spinal damage in the lower region affecting her mobility--but if she was able to flip you off so much she's probably ok. Still, you might want to consider EC or spondylosis, which seem to be able to cause intermittent, degenerative hind leg paralysis. I know EC is associated with hair loss too.
 
Thanks - I will research those two things later - I recognize now that GingerSpice had EC...never heard of the other one really.

She was hilarious trying to flick us off continually. Every second or third hop was flicking us off - EVEN WHEN SHE WAS IN THE OTHER ROOM FROM US!

After we washed her she still held that one leg funny...so I am a bit concerned about that. She didn't hold it as funny as she did before we washed her off - maybe she hadn't realized she could use it better. I'm going to have her play today and watch to see how she acts.
 

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