My girl has EC

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Bill Jesse

Bill Jesse

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Aug 17, 2010
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Location
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
My 9 month old female has symptoms of EC. Slight head tilt and a bit shaky on her feet. Standing on her hind quarters she rolls back. She can run quite fast, jumps into her loft which is about 8 inches up, eats very well and apart from the symptoms mentioned appears quite normal.

She was spayed about 2 weeks ago and that is when I first noticed the symptoms. I have her on Panacur and she just had her sixth dose.

Obviously being new to this I am worried although she seems indifferent. She shares a hutch with another young female and they are extremely close. Some say to separate them but it would be too cruel IMO as they need each other. The other girl is not showing any signs yet.

And this being new to me has me staring at my other bunnies to see if they too have symptoms. One little girl who lives away from her has a tendancy to lose her balance on the odd occasion when she is sitting quite high on her haunches. Doesn't fall and corrects it. Of course I am worrying about her now although she is very active, binkies, jumps up and down to her loft and runs like the wind.

If this loss of balance is an indication of EC then I'd want to start her on Panacur ASAP but I am not yet convinced. Other rabbit propleI know say that rabbitsdo lose their balance on occasion.

My other concern is changing the hay bedding in the hutch to something else and putting the hay in a manger so that they won't eat urine touched hay. Any suggestions on a good bedding material would help. I understand there are pros and cons to wood shavings and as they are in my bunny barn I would not want to leave them with any cloth material they could eat. Straw has been suggested.

Anyway I am worried sick over this and although I know there are a lot of surviving rabbits with EC, I am still really concerned. I need some input to allay my fears.

Thank you.
 
when we suspected ecuniculi, our vet told us that all rabbits should be treated - regardless if they are showing symptoms. i think you should treat all rabbits who have been in contact with her
 
Our wild -life expert, Randy, has used a drug originally made for an encephalitis type parasitic illness in horses (Ponazuril) http://www.bayerdvm.com/Products/Marquis/marquis.cfm

for e-cuniculi in rabbits with much better results than with the drug Panacur. Ponazuril has also proven to be an outstanding treatment for coccidia both in horses and small mammals.

This has also been brought up by another rabbit expert, Dana krempels.

http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/paresis.html

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Rabbits-703/2008/10/E-cuniculi-Ponazuril.htm

Good article on Ec but it is not current re.Ponazuril

http://www.rabbitwelfare.co.uk/resources/content/info-sheets/ecuniculi.htm

From our library ( not all articles current )

http://www.rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=14471&forum_id=10

Many rabbits exposed to ec do not show symptoms and if they eventually do it often is when they are older and have lowered immune respones.

try to learn as much as you can about the disease
 
I am researching as much as I can and soliciting information from many rabbit owners. My vet is of top of this but she did not suggest that I give the second rabbit any medication. One of the posters above did suggest it so now I am in a quandry. My vet did suggest I find alternate bedding and getting the girls to use a water bottle.

Of course as I wrote originally I am constantly watching each rabbit's actions in case they show signs of EC coming to the surface. Probably to the point of driving myself crazy and reading bad things into every "odd" gesture they make.

At this moment the EC girl is quite happily eating hay and walking around her hutch. She has always been the laid-back rabbit so she may have had symptoms earlier which I did not catch.


 
I read through the links you posted and found it very informative.I will print them out and start a paper file. Thank you.

Now the other question regarding loss of balance that I mentioned in my first post. My third female, a Himmie, is very active and is forever getting into trouble. She has had no close contact with the EC girl but I have seen her lose balance when she is up on her haunches. She does not fall but corrects herself before she does. She is big into running and jumping over things and seems to be stable. It is just those few occasions when she has lost her balance that concern me. There are more times when she gets back down normally. Am I reading too much into this?
 
Hey Bill, absolutely give the others Panacur, it's a safe drug and catching the parasite early if they do have it is key. I'd also give the wobbly one antibiotics.

Our suspected EC UVic guys have gone from being almost totally disabled to barely having any symptoms.

It's usually latent in rabbits, half of them will have an infections but they will be asymptomatic until something else wears down their immune system.

I haven't read the links, this info is probably there, but they do infect each other through spores in the urine about six weeks after they're first infected. The spore-shedding peaks at about two months and ends at three months. I think usually by the time they're showing symptoms its past this stage.

We can't get Ponzuril through the vets in Canada, although I am trying to get some from the States right now.


sas
 
In one of the links it suggests a Panacur dose of 20mg/kg of weight. My syringes are in ml. I was giving 2 ml per kg. She weighs 2.3 kg so am giving her 0.46 ml. Does this make sense?
 
pla725 wrote:
Has your vet ruled out an middle or inner ear infection?
Click to expand...

This is what I was thinking because the symptoms that Bill Jesse is describing does not sound like EC. When I suspected that Prince had EC because he would "tic", like having seizures or tourette syndrome, I had him tested for EC and he came back negative.

The symptoms of this rabbit could be resulting in another issue.
 
That is a good question. No she has not even considered it although some of my very knowledgable friends have suggested that. However if this were the case would the rabbit not be scratching or shaking her ear? I have not seen signs of this. Would she not eat if the ear was infected? (connection to the jaw)

How would they check for an inner ear infection besides the obvious?
 
Usually if a rabbit has symptoms of EC one of the first symptoms would be dragging the left hind leg and incontinence. I've lost two rabbits to EC so I know what the signs are of this disease.

I would treat for an ear infection. Other than looking deep in the ear canal I'm not sure what other tests could be done. It really sounds more like an ear issue. My Ruby had nerve damage to her face which in turn caused her head tilt. The nerve damage was caused by the ear infection which was from ear mites.
 
Neither of those two symptoms are obvious. She does not use a litter box but I have not found any excessive urine among the papers. Her head tilt is ever so slight and because she has a small black spot to the left of her nose you might think she did have a big tilt.

She was out today and ran very fast as well as did a bit of a binkie a few times. I noticed that when she stopped abruptly after a hard run she was fine. No sign of wobble.
 
You can't really tell by the activity levels because they can still bounce around pretty good and run fast, and they eat well.

But I'd also guess ear infection (or mites) because the suspected EC-bunnies in that area are presenting with very slight wobbles and hind end paralysis. The other rabbits pick on them, they get stressed and it gets much worse.

Its almost impossible to see an inner-ear infection and you can't diagnose EC, either, so the vets just treat with antibiotics and Panacur.

Not a lot of antibiotics are good for head-area infections, there's a hard-to-cross brain barrier, Baytril is pretty useless for that. I think my vet prescribes Chlor Palm. It can be combined with bicillin shots every two days.



sas :clover:
 
Remember Bill Jesse that EC does not cause head tilt. An inner ear infection does.

The vet would look into the ear canal and if it is swollen or infected it could mean that she has a middle ear infection. I am not sure if there are blood tests for middle ear infections or not, have to check with your vet on that one.

Glad we could help you figure what is wrong with your bunny. I hope she gets better!

I also think that she would still be eating even if she did have a middle ear infection. When Sweetie and Prince had ear mites they both were eating and doing eerything normally as well as scratching their ears.

But I don't think that your bunny has ear mites, I think that it could be middle ear infection and it could be mild to moderate as to why she isn't shaking her head/ears.
 
I actually just lost a rabbit and had to retire one of my newest does because of E cuniculi. With my Juliet we first noticed her loosing weight she was so skinny and when we got her out to evaluate her she was not walking right at all! I was so worried about her and i took her immediately to my vet. I do not know how to explain her walking but she definately wouldnt binky or run. It pained me to even see her move. I felt so guilty for keeping her alive for the weeks i did. She had normal stool but i dont know about incontinence. I didnt have to change the puppy pad within days so i assumed it was normal. We took xrays of her spine and no break. She was eating and drinking water. We put her on an antibiotic to treat any suspected middle ear infection. No improvement. My mom did reading and found out about E cuniculi. So few vets know much about it and how to treat it where i live. But i didnt want to keep her living like this. It was to the point were her quality of life was no longer what she deserved. I looked in the books (luckily i work at a vet clinic and can easily look up tests and call places) so I found Texas A&M had the titer test. In books the only real way of diagnosing Ecuniculi is by doing a biopsy of the affected tissue. And the affected tissue starts with the brain and spinal cord. So my decision came to euthanasia and a necropsy. Her titer came back positive (512) and affected tissue was found in her brain and spinal cord. It was a horrifing experience.

Sorry for my long story but i did notice the last week juliet was alive she began getting what looked like vent disease, Im not sure if it was vent disease or just an infected vulva from dragging her rear everywhere. My mom definately bleached every cage her, her mother, and her two sisters were in. None of which have to my knowledge showed symptoms.

After revisiting this story what you describe does not sound like E cuniculi and i would reconsider your vets diagnosis and ask about an infection. Good luck to you and i hope that everything turns out okay. I can say you can always pay for a titer test but a positive test doesnt always mean it is definate unless you do the biopsy.
 
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