Found it helps with bunnies. Some people will use terramycin eye drops/lotion. I DO NOT medicate unless there is no other option.stick a wet tea bag on it (a warm bag) for a couple of minutes. Then, it sounds worse than it is, ... force the eyelids apart. If you don't force them apart from the sticky gunk the bunny can go blind in that eye. Sometimes you need to carefully pull dried gunk away (which is why it needs to soak for a bit) to aid in the healing process. SOMETIMES there is a whack of gunk behind that closed eyelid. you will want to wash that away as best you can. Check it a minimum of twice a day, each time soaking it in a warm tea bag (the astringents in the tea aid with healing). It should be healed within the week. it is does not heal, cull the baby rabbit for it's own sake.
IF in the next litter mamma throws more babies with gunky eyes DO NOT breed her again, remove her from your breeding program. THIS works in removing the problem of nestbox eye from your herd.
I have on occasion put ONE drop of penicillin on the eyeball to help with healing. Did wonders for me as a kid on the farm with farm cats!
Does it matter what kind of tea?stick a wet tea bag on it (a warm bag) for a couple of minutes. Then, it sounds worse than it is, ... force the eyelids apart. If you don't force them apart from the sticky gunk the bunny can go blind in that eye. Sometimes you need to carefully pull dried gunk away (which is why it needs to soak for a bit) to aid in the healing process. SOMETIMES there is a whack of gunk behind that closed eyelid. you will want to wash that away as best you can. Check it a minimum of twice a day, each time soaking it in a warm tea bag (the astringents in the tea aid with healing). It should be healed within the week. it is does not heal, cull the baby rabbit for it's own sake.
IF in the next litter mamma throws more babies with gunky eyes DO NOT breed her again, remove her from your breeding program. THIS works in removing the problem of nestbox eye from your herd.
I have on occasion put ONE drop of penicillin on the eyeball to help with healing. Did wonders for me as a kid on the farm with farm cats!
Chamomile is the gentle option, but we've had good results with black tea - more astringent, has tannins etc. A squirt of weak saline into the eye once every 24 hours helps to expel gunk as well.
I did the tea this morning. I pulled the eye open and there was so much gunk I couldn't see the red eye at first! Poor baby. I feel so bad for neglecting to care for it the past few days. I got some gunk out and when I put it back in the cage I saw it could open its eye a little. Now I'm encouraged to keep going with the treatment until it's all the way better. Thank you for the advice.
Well done, good job on opening the eye, that is the hardest part!
At this stage I gently eased it open, as you have done. The fur around the eye was really dirty, so I cut that away so that it didn't cause any reinfection. Be super careful if you do this though! Baby was blind, even once eyelid was open, blinded by a film like a cataract. 
Oh my gosh, thank you so much for all the detail! There is gunk in cleaning out every single time. I have thought there was a film over the eye but I wasn't quite sure. And I have only been using water to flush. I will start using saline instead. After I get it open and get as much gunk out as I can, the eyelids are red and swollen for a while but the eye is opening some. By the time I get the baby to treat again, the eye is shut and we start over. It's only been a few days that I've treated it consistently so I will be patient. If it ends up blind in one eye, it shouldn't be a problem to eat it when it reaches its culling weight, right?To introduce myself - I'm @shellz sister and the rabbits are my responsibility, @shellz is my researcher and alerted me to this post
I've had the exact same thing with 2 of my rabbits, so I may be able to help.
Well done, good job on opening the eye, that is the hardest part!
I started with helping mine to open their eyes at 10 days, the gunked one I had to open with a damp cloth. By 4 or 5 days later, it had all gunked shut and I brought it in closer to the house for daily nursing. This is what it was like at 14 days:
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View attachment 31234At this stage I gently eased it open, as you have done. The fur around the eye was really dirty, so I cut that away so that it didn't cause any reinfection. Be super careful if you do this though! Baby was blind, even once eyelid was open, blinded by a film like a cataract.
Once open, twice a day I treated it with saline, 1 tsp salt dissolved in 500mls water, basically washed it out with a very generous and liberal squirt (or 2) from a syringe. Also dosed colloidal silver orally twice a day to help it fight any infection as quite red and inflamed. Not sure how many mls it would be, maybe 0.2 or 0.5 ml of silver.
Did this twice every day for about 2 weeks, after 10 days of doing it I missed dosing it one evening, of both saline and silver, and that set it back about a week. After another 5 days I eased colloidal silver intake back to once a day, kept saline washing it twice a day.
After 3 or 4 weeks I gradually eased off the saline from twice a day to once a day. Back in the cage with mum, the sister of this little boy was developing a bad eye as well, so I brought her in and I've kept them together for company and dosing ever since.
By 4 weeks baby bunny had a blue tongue from silver overload, so lessened that down to a couple of times a week, until about 6 or 7 weeks old, or when it looked normal colour, not red and inflamed.
Chamomile teabags are a wonderful healer and great for pain relief, although teabags in general help to dry the eye up. If your little rabbit is as bad as mine, you don't want to start drying it up until the eye is clear. Otherwise, if you do dry it up while it is still discharging gunk, the gunk will dry up and form white clumps in the middle of the eye, rather than running down the fur. Better for it to be discharged and get out of the eye, mine had a cloudy film over the eye - I didn't introduce a teabag until this was healed and the eyes were starting to clear. This was about 6 or 7 weeks, so at this point I introduced teabags, still dosing with saline every night. Starting to drop back the colloidal silver, because I don't want that to taint the meat.
Regular teabags have more tannins in them than chamomile tea, and they will dry up the weepiness faster, although chamomile is a great healer - they both have their place.
I dose with a teabag most nights, type usually determined by which tea I feel more in the mood for drinking after I've used the teabag
They're now about 10 weeks, I'm still saline washing them once a day, but they both have sight and I'm treating them with a regular normal teabag now. There is some staining on the fur from the teabag, but that doesn't matter.
I treated them with a normal teabag tonight, this is the same rabbit now, as of an hour ago:
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View attachment 31235
Saline and colloidal silver are 2 very readily available medicines that seem to be very underrated.
Trust this helps, be interested to see some photos and know how you get on and keep us updated of progress!
Just to clarify, I know mine is genetic as the mum has it too, she's obviously passed it onto her kits.
I've had this with a few litters, change the nestbox bedding at 8 days. Never had an eye problem since I started doing it
Yes, I imagine it would swell shut between doses with just water, once you start using saline and doing it twice a day you may see some results....saline is so fantastic.
Since using saline, I'm already seeing improvement after just 3 days. Thank you so much for the help!!
