Penicillin regimen

[DeeNtheBuns]

Hi Everyone,
For those of you who have had to give your bunnies penicillin injections, how often and for how long did you have to give them? Due to lack of support from my current vet and the difficulty getting appts with real experienced exotics vets around me, I am looking for information on the length and frequency of the treatment. The current dose is .25mL for a 1.8 kg bunny. Several years ago I know it was prescribed three times a week, but I feel like it was for about 3 months. There is no abscess, it's what I'm assuming to be a tooth root infection since my bunny has frequent molar trims and has had a tooth root infection before that behaved just like this. I wasn't able to get head X-rays, which would have been helpful.
Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[Blue eyes]

@JBun

 

[JBun]

This study linked below, is the dosage and frequency, that I'm familiar with. It's the protocol I'd want to follow when treating abscesses with pen g procaine/benzathine injections. Every 2-3 days, for at least a month, though longer may be needed depending on the severity of the infection. At least 2 weeks past all infection being cleared up. This is the long acting procaine/benzathine. If you only have the pen g procaine, that has to be injected daily.

https://web.as.miami.edu/hare/jawabscess.html

https://people.umass.edu/~jwmoore/bicillin/bicillin.htm

The main precaution with giving penicillin injections is making absolutely sure that any leakage that gets on the fur, is very thoroughly cleaned off, particularly if it's in a spot your rabbit can reach with it's mouth. If a rabbit were to groom it off and ingest it, it could lead to fatal enterotoxemia.

For difficult infections and abscesses, I opted for azithromycin over pen g, as it acts quickly and is a shorter course, when the bacteria is sensitive to it that is. Plus it's given orally, which I prefer. But it is prescription. Only negative is some rabbits are sensitive to it and can have severe digestive upset, which if it happens then the antibiotic has to be stopped, and hopefully doesn't continue to cause a worsening of condition. My rabbits only experienced mild stomach cramping, that cleared up after a couple hours and they were back to normal.