Scent Glands- how exactly to clean them out?

[jcottonl02]

Pippin has needed his scent glands cleaned once, yeaaarrs ago, and the vet did it for me.

His scent glands now seem FILLLEEDDD and spilling over, so I tried to gently ease it out with my fingers. I was very gentle, and it didn't come out really. It looked almost as if it was attached to the thin skin that encased it, and I didn't want to hurt Pippin, fiddling around when I don't know for sure what I am doing.

Any advice? The 'bean' looks as though it can easily pop out if I just pull it, but I honestly don't want to try it unless I know it won't be damaging to him. It's so sensitive down there.

Thanks

Jen

 

[Happi Bun]

Most likely it is attached to a thin layer of skin. I've experienced this with bunnies that have filled scent glands. I believe it happens because the gunk in the glands is moist and sticky, but it dries quite hard.

It will break the skin a bit when pulled off and bleed slightly. To avoid this you will need some kind of lubricate to decrease the possibility of the skin ripping. I always use cotton swabs (also known as Q-tips) to clean scent glands. If you have a syringe maybe try squirting some warm water there a few times, you just want to loosen that hold it has on the skin. Mineral Oil would work as well.

Just in case, I would have some antibiotic ointment on hand. To be honest, if the skin does rip it will me minor with only a small bit of bleeding. Of course we want to try and avoid that though.

Good luck, let me know how it goes.

 

[jcottonl02]

Thanks so much Erika . Yeah that makes sense to me. I will definately try that but my goodness he will put up a fuss lol.

I'll let u know

Thanks again!

Jen

 

[tonyshuman]

I have found that mineral oil or baby oil works very well for really stuck stuff. The material that gets stuck in there is hydrophobic, so the water helps some but it can repel the water a bit. The stuff that's more stuck on there requires oil to loosen it from the skin. You could probably use cooking oil too, in a pinch. Just dip the Q-tip in the oil and wipe out that way. I do this with my guys and the shelters'. I used to use warm water at the shelter, but those guys are so gross because they have probably never had it done before, so I needed to buy some oil for them.

 

[Maureen Las]

from library

http://www.rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=55074&forum_id=10