Blind Baby Bunny?

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Teddy2511

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I noticed the other day that one of my 3 week old kits has one eye that looks like it has a foggy circle in the middle.

504i2v.jpg


The kit's other eye seems to be just fine, but it does seem to keep its eyes closed a little more often then the other kits and this baby's eyes didn't open until about 1-2 days after the others. Any guesses?
 
I had a house rabbit years ago that had an eye like that and it was systemic Pastuerella. However, we also have a colt that was born with a cataract in one eye, so it could be that.
 
The kit would be blind in that eye. :(

If the other eye looks like that, it is blind in that one, too.

With the eyes opening a bit later, my guess would be a condition called "nest box eye". This is an infection of the eye caused by the bacteria normally present in a nest, and can happen in the cleanest of nests. It is much less common in clean nests, though.

One thing that seems to help a lot is replacing the nest material about a week after the babies are born, reserving some clean fur to put back into the new nest material.

You may already do this, and I am definitely not commenting on your rabbits' living conditions, which, from this one picture, appear to be fine. :) Nest box eye and other conditions can strike anybody.

I had a little bun with the same situation -- his eyes still were not open a couple days after everybody else's, so we started putting saline and antibiotic ointment (just Neosporin... I didn't have the ocular stuff) on his stuck-shut eyes. When we finally gently got them open, his right eye looked just like that. He was blind in that eye, and kept it closed a lot of the time.

Ah -- MSD beat me to the "submit button". Both of her suggestions are possibilities, too. I thought pasteurella until I read that his eyes opened late, so that made me think nest box eye. Could still be pasteurella, though, or a cataract.
 
Miss M":2jam74e6 said:
I thought pasteurella until I read that his eyes opened late

And my brain glossed right over that part! :?

Miss M":2jam74e6 said:
Ah -- MSD beat me to the "submit button".

Good post, Miss M! It's easy for someone to beat you to an answer when you go in depth on a topic like that... It happens to me all the time! :roll:
 
Thank you so much for the clear information, Miss M!
I have had problems with that kit from the start so I am not super surprised. This kit had to have mom held down for him for his first meal (he was 1/2 to 2/3 the size of his litter mates) and then at about one week he was getting drenched in his siblings pee! (Could be the cause of his problems now?) I cleaned out the nest box at about 7-9 days and from then until about 14-16 days I didn't have any more problems. Now with his eye issue... Well, I'm guessing he'll become a cute little pet!
 

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