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About two years ago, a manager at one of the properties under my beloved Shay gave us her two rabbits. They were pets, and she had decided they had too many different kinds of animals. They were about six months old, and, although they were not littermates, they were raised together.
One was Fluffy, a NZW. The other was Nibbles, some sort of black dwarf. They were pretty funny to see together... especially when Fluffy would try to hide behind Nibbles. :shock:
"Nose rub?"
They were given to us with the knowledge that Fluffy would be a breeder for meat bunnies, and that she and Nibbles would be safe from the crock-pot themselves.
We had one empty cage, and no room for more, so all I could do was hope they could stay together. As it turned out, once Fluffy had her first litter, Nibbles became Overprotective Aunt Nibbles. :lol: It worked out well all this time. Fluffy gave us babies, Nibbles protected them until we removed them to a growout cage, and then it started over again.
Unfortunately, over the course of a year and a half, Nibbles never grew to trust us. She didn't want to be pulled out and held, and she didn't even want to be petted in the cage.
Oh, well... at least she was a good companion for Fluffy.
When we moved in September, Nibbles started sneezing now and then. I just about panicked, because I had no ability to quarantine at the time. All I could really do was watch nervously and wait.
No white snot appeared, and no other symptoms at all, except that once in a while she would sneeze out a short, narrow, sticky string. That was it. I grew to believe she was allergic to something around here, and relaxed.
Fluffy never showed any symptoms, none of her kits did, and no other rabbits in the rabbitry did.
A little over a month ago, Bunny-Wan Kenobi felt a bump on her right shoulder. I took a look, and saw it was an abscess.
The kids helped me do surgery on it. Bunny-Wan Kenobi held Nibbles, and ILoveBunnies helped hold and took pictures.
I trimmed short the fur around the abscess:
I applied Betadine to the abscess and the surrounding area. With my scalpel, I carefully cut the abscess into quarters. I expected soft pus. Instead, it contained something the consistency of semi-soft cheese, like cutting into a large cottage cheese curd.
I used the scalpel to gently scoop and very carefully scrape out the contents of the abscess.
I got to the bottom, removing all the white stuff I saw. There was one tiny depression in the middle that still had some. I suspected a deep pocket of infection. I gathered up the area below the abscess until it felt like I was below it all, and I started squeezing. The stuff was slightly softer, but still came out like toothpaste from a tube.
After removing all traces of infection I could find, I dripped Betadine generously into it, squeezing the area to encourage the stuff to go into the pocket. At top right, both kids had to hold Nibbles' head at this point.
Bandaging the area right above the shoulder proved to be a bit of a nutty task. Nibbles had had about all she could take, and we had to go around her body in front of and behind her leg. Finally, we got it properly bandaged, with a generous dose of triple antibiotic with analgesic.
We put her back in the cage, and Fluffy's kits started bouncing around her immediately.
After about a week, the bandage was removed, and after another week, the fur was coming back in.
She healed up fine. We gave her a course of PenG. Interestingly, the sneezing stopped. Oh, dear. Perhaps I had been wrong about the allergies.
Over the ensuing few weeks, she finally realized that we were not her enemies, and that being petted was really nice. She would let us pet her basically as long as we wanted, without trying to run away. She was warming up!
Night before last, I was petting her and Fluffy, when I felt something odd on her right hip. It felt like some matted fur, so I wasn't too concerned, but figured I'd look at it in the morning light.
The next morning, Bunny-Wan Kenobi came inside and told me Nibbles had a goopy eye. He held her as I looked at her eye and at her hip. I still wasn't sure what was going on with her hip. It didn't look like another abscess.
Strangely, there was something of a bad odor coming from her, especially around her head. She was a very, very sick bunny, and we were going to have to put her down.
But we had to leave soon, so we decided to give her a good last day. We pulled out the kennel, put it in a corner away from the rabbits, and filled the bottom with fresh hay. We put a J-feeder and water bottle that already needed to be sterilized in for her. We filled a dish with romaine lettuce, carrot shavings, and BOSS, and the kids went and found her a nice bull thistle.
You could tell she didn't feel good, it hurt for her to move, and being petted was uncomfortable. So we talked to her sweetly, and then left. In spite of the way she felt, though, she dove right into eating the thistle.
When we returned, the bowl full of goodies was licked clean, and the thistle was almost gone. She'd had a marvelous day full of treats she normally got only now and then.
We got the milk crate we use for dispatching, and lined the bottom with hay. I put in a different assortment of treats she didn't usually get very often, like new shoots from blackberry canes.
Shay waited patiently, and eventually she sat very still for him. We hope her last thought was something along the lines of, "WOW!! This has been the BEST DAY EVER!"
Afterward, I took a few more pictures. I don't know why I didn't even think to do a necropsy, but I didn't. And the cloudy day messed with my camera, which normally takes awesome shots.
Goopy eye:
Flaky, scabby, bare skin at hip:
More flaky, scabby, bare skin... with a lump of something that is not an abscess in the middle:
I am sure these pictures are not good enough, especially with no necropsy.
I do not believe she had Pasteurella, because no rabbit besides her has shown any symptoms at any time. If it was Pasteurella, then I have a rabbitry full of iron-clad immune systems! If I had thought she had Pasteurella or anything potentially infectious at any time, I would have culled her immediately. The only exception was right after we moved, when she started sneezing, and I wondered. I had had non-infectious sneezing rabbits before -- Pearl and some of her offspring -- so I watched for other problems.
Nevertheless, we will be watching everybunny for a while!
I know I was not as proactive as some members on here are. Some cull at the first sign of anything amiss health-wise. I understand that, and may adopt that policy myself in the future. Just for this rabbit, I didn't want to cull her if it really wasn't necessary. I do realize the chances I was taking. Just so ya know.
One was Fluffy, a NZW. The other was Nibbles, some sort of black dwarf. They were pretty funny to see together... especially when Fluffy would try to hide behind Nibbles. :shock:
"Nose rub?"
They were given to us with the knowledge that Fluffy would be a breeder for meat bunnies, and that she and Nibbles would be safe from the crock-pot themselves.
We had one empty cage, and no room for more, so all I could do was hope they could stay together. As it turned out, once Fluffy had her first litter, Nibbles became Overprotective Aunt Nibbles. :lol: It worked out well all this time. Fluffy gave us babies, Nibbles protected them until we removed them to a growout cage, and then it started over again.
Unfortunately, over the course of a year and a half, Nibbles never grew to trust us. She didn't want to be pulled out and held, and she didn't even want to be petted in the cage.
Oh, well... at least she was a good companion for Fluffy.When we moved in September, Nibbles started sneezing now and then. I just about panicked, because I had no ability to quarantine at the time. All I could really do was watch nervously and wait.
No white snot appeared, and no other symptoms at all, except that once in a while she would sneeze out a short, narrow, sticky string. That was it. I grew to believe she was allergic to something around here, and relaxed.
Fluffy never showed any symptoms, none of her kits did, and no other rabbits in the rabbitry did.
A little over a month ago, Bunny-Wan Kenobi felt a bump on her right shoulder. I took a look, and saw it was an abscess.
The kids helped me do surgery on it. Bunny-Wan Kenobi held Nibbles, and ILoveBunnies helped hold and took pictures.
I trimmed short the fur around the abscess:
I applied Betadine to the abscess and the surrounding area. With my scalpel, I carefully cut the abscess into quarters. I expected soft pus. Instead, it contained something the consistency of semi-soft cheese, like cutting into a large cottage cheese curd.
I used the scalpel to gently scoop and very carefully scrape out the contents of the abscess.
I got to the bottom, removing all the white stuff I saw. There was one tiny depression in the middle that still had some. I suspected a deep pocket of infection. I gathered up the area below the abscess until it felt like I was below it all, and I started squeezing. The stuff was slightly softer, but still came out like toothpaste from a tube.
After removing all traces of infection I could find, I dripped Betadine generously into it, squeezing the area to encourage the stuff to go into the pocket. At top right, both kids had to hold Nibbles' head at this point.
Bandaging the area right above the shoulder proved to be a bit of a nutty task. Nibbles had had about all she could take, and we had to go around her body in front of and behind her leg. Finally, we got it properly bandaged, with a generous dose of triple antibiotic with analgesic.
We put her back in the cage, and Fluffy's kits started bouncing around her immediately.
After about a week, the bandage was removed, and after another week, the fur was coming back in.
She healed up fine. We gave her a course of PenG. Interestingly, the sneezing stopped. Oh, dear. Perhaps I had been wrong about the allergies.
Over the ensuing few weeks, she finally realized that we were not her enemies, and that being petted was really nice. She would let us pet her basically as long as we wanted, without trying to run away. She was warming up!
Night before last, I was petting her and Fluffy, when I felt something odd on her right hip. It felt like some matted fur, so I wasn't too concerned, but figured I'd look at it in the morning light.
The next morning, Bunny-Wan Kenobi came inside and told me Nibbles had a goopy eye.
He held her as I looked at her eye and at her hip. I still wasn't sure what was going on with her hip. It didn't look like another abscess.Strangely, there was something of a bad odor coming from her, especially around her head. She was a very, very sick bunny, and we were going to have to put her down.
But we had to leave soon, so we decided to give her a good last day. We pulled out the kennel, put it in a corner away from the rabbits, and filled the bottom with fresh hay. We put a J-feeder and water bottle that already needed to be sterilized in for her. We filled a dish with romaine lettuce, carrot shavings, and BOSS, and the kids went and found her a nice bull thistle.
You could tell she didn't feel good, it hurt for her to move, and being petted was uncomfortable. So we talked to her sweetly, and then left. In spite of the way she felt, though, she dove right into eating the thistle.
When we returned, the bowl full of goodies was licked clean, and the thistle was almost gone. She'd had a marvelous day full of treats she normally got only now and then.
We got the milk crate we use for dispatching, and lined the bottom with hay. I put in a different assortment of treats she didn't usually get very often, like new shoots from blackberry canes.
Shay waited patiently, and eventually she sat very still for him. We hope her last thought was something along the lines of, "WOW!! This has been the BEST DAY EVER!"
Afterward, I took a few more pictures. I don't know why I didn't even think to do a necropsy, but I didn't.
And the cloudy day messed with my camera, which normally takes awesome shots.Goopy eye:
Flaky, scabby, bare skin at hip:
More flaky, scabby, bare skin... with a lump of something that is not an abscess in the middle:
I am sure these pictures are not good enough, especially with no necropsy.
I do not believe she had Pasteurella, because no rabbit besides her has shown any symptoms at any time. If it was Pasteurella, then I have a rabbitry full of iron-clad immune systems! If I had thought she had Pasteurella or anything potentially infectious at any time, I would have culled her immediately. The only exception was right after we moved, when she started sneezing, and I wondered. I had had non-infectious sneezing rabbits before -- Pearl and some of her offspring -- so I watched for other problems.
Nevertheless, we will be watching everybunny for a while!
I know I was not as proactive as some members on here are. Some cull at the first sign of anything amiss health-wise. I understand that, and may adopt that policy myself in the future. Just for this rabbit, I didn't want to cull her if it really wasn't necessary. I do realize the chances I was taking. Just so ya know.
