Breathing weird

[Olimpia]

Hi all,
I've just come home from uni and one of my baby hare does seems to be breathing weird or making a weird noise... it sounds exactly like wind blowing into a video camera if you guys understand what I mean. My mom of course says she never noticed it.
Does it sound like a URI or something else? She's not sneezing/snotty at all.

 

[MaggieJ]

Is she holding her head tilted back? That is a common sign of respiratory problems. Try listening to her chest to see if there is a rattling/crackling sound. She could have pneumonia or other infection. Is she acting normal apart from the weird breathing?

Is she weaned? Putting her in quarantine might spare the others if it is something infectious.

 

[ladysown]

I'd be checking for damage or a piece of hay stuck where it shouldn't be.

 

[Olimpia]

She's 3 months old but I've left her with her mom (other siblings separated).
But today I noticed white snot on the mom.
So I've brought them both into the house.
I'm going to call the vet about nasal swabs on Monday. Maybe they can cut us a deal as we've spent so much there lately and just had one of our ferrets PTS today, not what I wanted to come home to after having invested so much into the hares.
Or is it possible to buy kits and swab myself to send to a lab somewhere? In Canada...

 

[MaggieJ]

Just a shot in the dark, Olimpia, but the University of Guelph has a lot of agricultural and animal science courses. Perhaps it might be worth a phone call or two to see if they do that kind of testing.

 

[Olimpia]

I'm not sure, I didn't see anything on the lab site. Plus the rabbits are like 4 hours away from Guelph.

I'm not sure what I should do. I think I'll probably just cull all the rabbits and not do this anymore. :/ <br /><br /> -- Mon Dec 21, 2015 4:43 pm -- <br /><br /> Right so for now the vet just said to keep these two isolated and everything as dust free as possible and watch the other rabbits outside for 2 weeks. He said he wouldn't do anything for now if they were his, just wait and see a bit longer and watch the other rabbits. He'd rather sedate and do x-rays/blood if things got worse since swabs wouldn't help much likely since most rabbits test positive for pasturella anyways.. I guess it is a tricky disease to work with.

I am butchering some meat rabbits this week so maybe we can check their lungs for stuff as well then...

To make matters worse, another baby hare (3 months old) jumped over a solid 3 foot high plywood wall today and our puppy attacked her, her ear is a bit torn and her back was a bit bloody. -_- Bad events come in 3's right? So with my ferret being PTS I will have a break for a little while now right? HAaha...

 

[FourRingCircus]

Awww... so sorry for the tough time lately . It does seem to come in threes though, I have always wondered why that was.

Definitely keep them isolated, and care for them last so you don't transfer it on your skin or clothing to the others.

 

[Olimpia]

Sooo Pinot and Syrah have been in QT for a month now indoors. There aren't really any symptoms left, the gurgling has stopped, there was never any snot at any point. Basically they were sneezing and the baby was gurgling but it seems to have cleared up completely.
I don't think anything serious would have gotten better without antibiotics.
We switched to yesterday's news bedding, switched hay source (our old hay suppliers were awful quality). Also my mom has started giving all the animals garlic in their water (whatever, I won't argue it ahaha).

Probably if this was an actual working show herd I would have culled them. But as of now this is a closed herd for experimenting. I got the rabbits to gain practical experience for vet school (and yay we've gotten to deal with a ton of rabbit health issues in the first year). So I've been talking with my vet a lot and feel okay putting them back. (The diagnostics for a single bun would be $650 :'( )

Honestly I think I need more ventilation in my cages. :/ I'm making new ones soon which will be nice for the hares but easier to sterilize than the wood bottoms (got the idea from other hare keepers).