Broken leg or something more sinister (graphic pics warning)

[HareyHounds]

Hi all,

I have a litter of ~9 day old NZW cross meat mutts and although they seem to be developing very well (eyes are mostly open and they're big and round), I have one kit who just doesn't seem quite right.
The baby in question always seems to have a dirty back end/tail and one of his legs just seems a bit off. The wonky leg is quite dirty and although it seems to have some amount of movement, it's definitely much weaker than the other.
A bit of a background on the buns.. We purchased mumma bun from a meat breeder and unbeknownst to us, she came with a newborn litter of 12 kits. Two babies died on the first day (first pic) and we lost a runt on the third day despite two supplement feeds to try to get his strength up (he's pictured in the second photo next to a healthy baby). Hygiene at the breeder's property was questionable (to put it nicely) so I'm a bit concerned we might have something infectious going on here.
Anyone have any experiences with weak/floppy hind legs? The baby is actually a decent size and is obviously still being fed.





__________ Tue Oct 29, 2013 6:16 pm __________

Not sure if these really help but below are some pics of the wonky-leg baby.

The wonklyleg baby's back end. This is actually the cleanest I've seen it. All the other kits are spotless.


Wonkyleg baby trying to crawl. The other babies are not only crawling just fine, some are already hopping about (or trying, anyway).


The rest of the nest. Wonkyleg is pointed out with the red arrow. He's one of the biggest babies and always looks round and glossy.


Edit: random doubles of some photos! And photos in the wrong order!

 

[MamaSheepdog]

I had a kit earlier this year that I suspect either had a spinal injury from the doe stepping on it after birth or a congenital deformity which resulted in hindquarter paralysis. When it was tiny like your kit it seemed okay and nursed well, so I wanted to "give it a chance".

However, once it got to be about 3-4 weeks old there was some hair loss on the legs from it dragging itself around and it also got a dirty behind. "Giving it a chance" just prolonged the inevitable and ultimately resulted in some suffering before I dispatched it.

Hard as it is to end the life of a cute and helpless little kit, it really is the kindest thing to do in some cases.

Since the other surviving kits seem healthy I doubt it is contagious. The losses of the other kits and this deformity may be due to the poor conditions the momma came from. If they weren't kept clean I would suspect that the feeding may have been haphazard as well.

If you have other rabbits I would observe strict quarantine and make sure to tend these rabbits last just to be safe.

I'm sorry you are experiencing this and found RabbitTalk in this way, but welcome to the forum in any case.

:welcomewagon:

Hopefully most of your future posts will be joyous ones! :good-luck:

 

[HareyHounds]

However, once it got to be about 3-4 weeks old there was some hair loss on the legs from it dragging itself around and it also got a dirty behind. "Giving it a chance" just prolonged the inevitable and ultimately resulted in some suffering before I dispatched it.

I guess I suspected the outcome wouldn't be good
It's frustrating because up until about three days ago, Wonkyleg was the biggest, healthiest baby. My first guess was that Mumma Bun stepped on him, she had no human handling so even though she's a great mum generally (her nest was beautiful), she panics at the slightest smell/sight/sound and I've seen her launch herself into the nest in a panic and run clean over the kits.
I'd like to keep Mumma Bun as she's a gorgeous rabbit for a meat mutt (fawny red) but if she stresses so much over human contact, part of me thinks that the kindest thing to do would be to remove her.

Edit: And thanks for the welcome, MSD I've actually been reading the forum for a while now, researching before I got any buns. I probably shouldn't have bought Mumma Bun but the breeder's sheds were just so depressing. Never seen so many flies in my life!

 

[AmysMacdog]

Welcome HareyHounds! So sorry you had such a bad experience at that breeder. Sounded horrible. I hate flies around my critters let alone seeing that many! Yuck!
Anyway welcome to RT. I wish it was under better circumstances. If mumma bun were mine I'd give her longer, I'd put a tarp on her cage covering the sides top and give her a hide box for her to run into with hay in it. With the babies being with her now, it might be a tight squeeze adding a hide box for mom but once they leave their nest you could replace it with a bigger box with a hole cut in the side big enough for mom. If the door of the cage won't let you do that then maybe the tarp will give her enough feeling of security to calm her down. Hope she gets better for you.
Good luck!

 

[Marinea]

So sorry that this is your intro to RT, HareyHounds.

I agree with MSD, I would probably put the kit down.

Amy has a great idea about giving the momma a hiding place. You might also consider slowly teaching her that humans aren't bad- they give out treats! All I have to do now is rattle the bag and my very skittish doe comes right over for a banana chip.

Hope things improve for you. And I hope you stick around and share more about your rabbits with us.

 

[ladysown]

I'd suspect damage at this point and merely cull the poor thing.

 

[Millinex]

I agree, cull.

 

[HareyHounds]

Welcome HareyHounds! So sorry you had such a bad experience at that breeder. Sounded horrible. I hate flies around my critters let alone seeing that many! Yuck!
Anyway welcome to RT. I wish it was under better circumstances. If mumma bun were mine I'd give her longer, I'd put a tarp on her cage covering the sides top and give her a hide box for her to run into with hay in it. With the babies being with her now, it might be a tight squeeze adding a hide box for mom but once they leave their nest you could replace it with a bigger box with a hole cut in the side big enough for mom. If the door of the cage won't let you do that then maybe the tarp will give her enough feeling of security to calm her down. Hope she gets better for you.
Good luck!

My current setup is..
2Dx3Lx1.5H metre dog pen (to keep out predators, we have a lot of stray cats around :evil: ) with a pitched roof made of wood/wire which is covered with a tarp and then silver shadecloth over the top of that to keep it all cool. It's positioned in a corner of the yard so back and one side is sheltered by the fences. The other open side I covered with a tarp. So, only open part is the front. I could cover that too but I was worried about turning it into a bunny oven.
Placed inside that are the hutches. Mumma bun's hutch is this- http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/310729395051 ... 1439.l2649 (hopefully link will work) I removed the internal partition and keep the door that leads into the run closed (because she won't leave the house section anyway).
The back of the hutch/house backs onto the front of the pen so the hutch run itself is very sheltered and fairly dark but she still won't leave the house, just sits in there all day, next to her nest, looking very unhappy.

Besides having it set up as above, I also painted a small amount of lavender oil on a few outside parts of the hutch to help calm her and have been adding chamomile to her feed- which is fescue hay, a variety of herbs (including dill and fennel), some leafy greens, small amount of oats mixed through lucerne chaff and the occasional carrot.
She does seem to recognise food time (will get up on her hindlegs and watch me) but as soon as she has the food, she withdraws again very quickly, even if she has to yank the food out of my hand to get away from me :|
I don't mind if she never becomes a super friendly (or even regular friendly!) bun, I'd just like to be able to get her out of her hutch to clean it without having to wear gardening gloves to pick her up.<br /><br />__________ Wed Nov 20, 2013 10:22 pm __________<br /><br />For those who were following this thread, I didn't end up culling Wonky but kept him to see how things progressed and if it could be fixed with regular exercise on grass.
And interestingly, I think I finally have an answer. This afternoon, I noticed one of his front legs was beginning to also go wonky- meaning we started with one "damaged" leg that became two that is now three- so it's not actually an injury at all. We're dealing with splayed legs. :groooan: The good thing is, at only 4 weeks of age I'm hopeful that we can correct it with bracing and give him back some good quality of life. The bad news is.. given some of the major genetic issues with this litter (I seem to have one kit now who has decided to grow a long-ish wool coat *facepalm* ), anyone not edible will be desexed and rehomed as a pet and we go back to looking for new foundation stock to complete the herd.
Anyways, going to give bracing a try for two weeks and I'll post some before and after photos. Should be an interesting* exercise!

*bitey/scratchy