Is she fine?

So, I already posted about a doe with suspected syphilis, who is 4 months old and hasn't been bred. Well, after only seeing white pus-like stuff for 2 days, it has suddenly cleared up. She never got any lesions. There was a tiny scab on her mouth but I couldn't tell if it was that or something else. She is active and eating well.

What I'm asking is: should I leave her on quarantine and treat for syphilis anyway, or is she fine?
Sorry for asking lots of questions, I'm just unsure and I don't want to make my other rabbits sick.

I would see if you can take a swab in to get vet tested.....
treating based on guess work is what leads to antibiotic tolerance and super bugs....

If it is syphilis, were would she have gotten it? (mother, cage, neighbour?)

If you can't identify correctly were it came from, you may need to treat the whole herd.


If she will not come into contact with other rabbits, and she doesn't seem to be suffering, you may not need to do anything...

I don't think I will be able to get a swab, as it's already hard to afford the dog vet bills, and my parents' rule for getting buns was no vet bills.

The rest of the herd has been checked and they all seem fine. They've never had problems and I've had them all for over a year to at least 6 months, depending on the rabbit. This doe that had the problem hardly had any contact besides me handling her after the others. She is even housed on her own, without any other cages beside hers. My only guess is if she has it, she had been exposed by her mom? I've had her for 3 of her 4 months of life, and this is the first sign.

I would like to know what to do now so I don't spread it to the herd. I don't want to have to treat everybody, as I have a young litter, a doe due in a couple days, and the other doe is pregnant, 2 weeks along. I was also planning on breeding the doe in the future.

I guess maybe I'll just try and treat this one doe. If I can find antibiotics, how many treatments do they require, at what intervals?

Oh, by the way, this is LittleFluffyBunnies on my sister's account yet again. She keeps forgetting to log out and I always assume it's my account until I post.

I guess your biggest concern should be....
Will you be selling rabbits to anyone?....

If these rabbits are just for your consumption, and you can't get a diagnosis (just treating with antibiotics is NOT a good idea) then I'd say carry on......

Syphilis can go into a "remission" of sorts... were there are no symptoms until they are stressed... I would assume mom has it and any buck bred to her as well as any doe bred to the buck... so treating just one rabbit doesn't make sense either.

There are a lot of people on here that treat their rabbits at home, good vets for rabbits are hard to find and can be expensive. I had to treat it in my herd when I first got started (I bought some rabbits in poor shape when I first got started, not knowing what to look for or avoid), but I can't remember specific dosing... sorry . I can see overuse being a bigger issue in large scale operations (like what they are doing in commercial chicken houses - treating everyone all the time as a preventative), or for people who sell to the public on a regular basis (sending those bloodlines out after being treated for the new owner to treat them again for something else, etc.), but for the average pet owner or backyard meat operation it shouldn't be much to worry about. The ones that I treated are no longer around, you know?

I used PenG from Tractor Supply. It's a crazy small dosing so read the bottle and do the math - then do it again just to be safe . I grabbed the scruff of the neck (that sounds a bit harsh, but hopefully you know what i mean) and injected it in that area with the smallest needle/syringe they had.

Animal husbandry looks different to each person/farm - we found one of DH's gpa's NB calves down in the woods. She couldn't stand up, couldn't walk, could barely hold her head up. He wasn't home so we hauled her out (whew!) and he came to check her out a few hours later - based on her breathing he was pretty sure she had pneumonia so he brought me the antibiotics he uses and on the label it has instructions for one time dosing for those times when you might only get one chance to treat them. We squirted small amounts of milk down her throat (could not get her to eat), he gave her some Pepto, and the next morning she was like a new cow! She sucked down a full bottle of milk, then I heard a cow mooing, with her answering - the mom was actually looking for her! YAY! I carried (well, attempted to, my legs gave out and I fell so DH came out to help) her out to the fence line and off she went with mama! DH's gpa was convinced she was an abandoned twin, thankfully she was taken back into the group... The medicine type really came into play b/c there is NO WAY that mama cow was letting me get any where near her after that. I went to check on her a couple times a day that first week - never knew cows could growl, but I quickly learned they will when they aren't happy with you! :x :lol:

I do actually sell rabbits quite often as pets. However, only the doe's kits will be sold, not her. She's staying with me. I don't know if that's still a concern.

I was only planning on treating this one because I don't actually own any of this rabbit's relatives. I bought her at 4 weeks old from my local pet shop(where I buy my stock). It makes sense though if she got it from her mom, who I didn't see, or if she picked it up from there, and it was in remission until now. I can't think of any way she got it from my herd, as I've owned them and bred them for so long without issue, and besides, she has had almost no direct contact, if any.

My current plan is to keep her on strict quarantine for a few weeks until I need to move her to a cage neighboring another rabbit, and then I will see about getting a swab done if possible, so I know if I have to deal with it. If she has it then I'll treat it. Then at least if another of my herd happens to contract it, I'll know it's the same thing and treat whoever needs to be treated.

Since she didn't come from your herd and she hasn't been bred I don't see a big concern that it has spread past her (depending on cage set up and all, of course). The one I had was obvious with scabby sores and all... you could quarantine, with a wait and see approach unless you were planning on breeding her soon.