Natural medicine for rabbits?

[trinityoaks]

I've been doing a lot of exploring with herbal medicines for my family recently, and I'm wondering about extending that to rabbits, as well. Of course, there are some things that I (and many of you) already do, such as mint to dry up a doe, pumpkin seeds for worms, etc. What about treatments for other things?

Here's an example: Our family has been having good success with using echinacea tincture (extract) as both a topical antibiotic (cuts, scrapes) and an internal one (used it for strep throat for myself recently). Could it also be used for rabbits, say, for sore hocks or somesuch?

__________ Tue May 28, 2013 8:16 pm __________

Hmmmm. . . I just rediscovered this thread that I'd forgotten about:

post158220.html

Still, it doesn't mention using echinacea tincture as an antibacterial, so I'm still wondering about that.

 

[caroline]

I don't know about echinacea but I have used golden seal ointment that I made with just golden seal powder [VERY expensive] in a base of coconut oil [solid @ room temp so i use it for a lot of my medicinal things. I have used it on all our animals including the bunz, for cuts, etc.

I also put 2 TBSP of kombucha/gal of water for all the rabbits. I've been doing that for about 9 months now instead of ACV because it is much easier to brew than ACV.

 

[MaggieJ]

I've never used echinacea for my rabbits, but there have been numerous references to it in past threads. I used the search button and here's what came up:
search.php?keywords=echinacea&terms=all&author=&sc=1&sf=all&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search

 

[caroline]

I thought of another thing while I was filling the waterers this morning. I saw all the nest boxes hanging on the fence posts around the barn yard so they can get "sterilized"in the sun and I remembered that I also spray them with a thyme oil spray that I make by putting about 3 droppers full of organic thyme oil into a qt spray bottle and filling it up with water. I then spray down the nest boxes after I scrub them. I don't like to use chlorine based disinfectants and I have read that thyme oil is a "natural" disinfectant. Don't know if it's true or not but I have not had any problems with kits getting nest box eye, enteritis, etc.