Suddenly Swollen Lips! Any Ideas?

[PoppyLapine]

As I was making my rounds this evening, feeding and watering. I noticed that one of my english lop's lips are completely swollen and she has some milky eye discharge. She seems lethargic and has no interest in eating or drinking. Has anyone else experienced this? What are the chances it's some random act of a spider bite and not something serious?

 

[Preitler]

Although it could be an insect bite or something else rather harmless, I would quarantine her thoroughly (incl. washing hands, changing cloths, tending to her last...) right away, just in case it's contagious. I had an Myxo outbreak 10 years ago, and I'm a bit nervous since then, first things I noticed were swollen eye lids and puffed faces, had no idea what I was dealing with. But they didn't stop eating right away, instead soldiered on for about 2 weeks, so some differences there, no need for panic but caution.

Are only the lips swollen, or eye lids, base of the ears too. Ears look reddisch (I have no experience with lops though), are they hot?

No idea what insects or spiders you have around, but I would think that rather unlikely. Another thing I could imagine would be tooth issues, injury, abcess or infection in the mouth area, haven't seen that irl, but I would have a close look.

First thing I, personally, would do now, after quarantining, is giving her some pain med to see if it helps (Meloxicam (0,3mg/kg), or in a pinch Ibuprofen (ca. 4mg/kg)), offering her everything she might eat, give her water - holding the bowl to her lips or syringe feed some if she doesn't drink. When one doesn't eat I hold hay or whatever yummy fresh stuff I have (hogweed, dandelion, leaves from roses, willow or apple .....) against their mouth until they bite it out of anger, sometimes they gkeep munching on it once it's in their mouth, a good sign.


Medirabbit:
http://www.medirabbit.com/Safe_medication/Analgesics/safe_analgesics.htm

Old Thread on RCO with some suggestions what to check for, pics are gone but in that case it was an inner ear infection, a lop too:
https://www.rabbitsonline.net/threads/swollen-lip.57577/#post-792166

 

[jani]

I agree take every precaution just in case it is something spreadng. But my first thought s abcess/infection, so I would check her teeth and around her face and neck for lumps etc.

 

[PoppyLapine]

Myxo is my worry, because the first condition that come up when you Google "rabbit with swollen lips" is that.. I wasn't able to quarantine her lastnight, since that room i use for that was occupied by another rabbit, who of which is healthy and doesn't need to be there, and i didn't have one of my spare cages hand. So this morning I'll get a fresh cage set up for the lop and move the healthy rabbit out of the room. It's times like this that make it hard having my rabbit barn on another property and not at my house. It makes monitoring and tending to sick animals a pain.
I do have some venomous spiders where live, but have seen none of them in the barn, only cellar spiders, which also are highly venomous, but their fangs are so small they cant hurt humans and generally animals. Plus in the years I've been here, I've never suspected one of my rabbits have been bitten by a spider.
I didn't notice anything else swollen at the time, but the swelling on her face seemed to be making it a challenge to breath through her nose, she wasn't gasping for breath, but you can tell it was a challenge. I did offer her water, which she drank a little, but she seemed to have issues swallowing, so she wasn't to eager to drink more.
My other thought was an allergic reaction to something, but I haven't given her anything new.
I'll definitely check her teeth. I'm kicking myself this morning for not checking last night, I usually do when a rabbit is acting off. Her swelling was just so sudden, I guess my mind decided it wasn't imortant.
I'll give a update later after I move her out of the barn and give her a thorough look over again.

 

[jani]

Myxo is my worry, because the first condition that come up when you Google "rabbit with swollen lips" is that.. I wasn't able to quarantine her lastnight, since that room i use for that was occupied by another rabbit, who of which is healthy and doesn't need to be there, and i didn't have one of my spare cages hand. So this morning I'll get a fresh cage set up for the lop and move the healthy rabbit out of the room. It's times like this that make it hard having my rabbit barn on another property and not at my house. It makes monitoring and tending to sick animals a pain.
I do have some venomous spiders where live, but have seen none of them in the barn, only cellar spiders, which also are highly venomous, but their fangs are so small they cant hurt humans and generally animals. Plus in the years I've been here, I've never suspected one of my rabbits have been bitten by a spider.
I didn't notice anything else swollen at the time, but the swelling on her face seemed to be making it a challenge to breath through her nose, she wasn't gasping for breath, but you can tell it was a challenge. I did offer her water, which she drank a little, but she seemed to have issues swallowing, so she wasn't to eager to drink more.
My other thought was an allergic reaction to something, but I haven't given her anything new.
I'll definitely check her teeth. I'm kicking myself this morning for not checking last night, I usually do when a rabbit is acting off. Her swelling was just so sudden, I guess my mind decided it wasn't imortant.
I'll give a update later after I move her out of the barn and give her a thorough look over again.

I feel you... as of TODAY I have more rabbits on my little town property then I can handle so some rabbits are going to move offsite and that is exactly my concern! I do hope they little girl is OK!

 

[PoppyLapine]

So, sad update.... she made it through the night. But died this morning... I checked her teeth, everything looked totally normal there. The ears had no swelling or even signs of infection. The genitals looked normal. I didn't feel any other swelling anywhere either. I'm going to put my whole rabbit barn on quarantine for a month. Hopefully it was just a fluke thing and no one else in the barn shows symptoms.. My single rabbit in the quarantine room will stay there as she has had no contact with the other rabbits...

 

[Preitler]

I'm sorry, hope that was the end of it, that it was an individual issue...

Myxo doesn't kill that fast, in my experience. There's still RHD out there which does kill at that pace, no experience with that, if there could be any symptoms like that.

Good luck.

That Myxo outbreak I had killed 14 of my 15 rabbits in my first year of breeding, sole surviver was my little Fury that I quarantined in my kitchen, kept her indoors for 8 months, changed a lot about how I thought about keeping rabbits.

 

[PoppyLapine]

Same here, I hope her death will be the end of whatever is going on.
I'm sorry to hear you went through such a loss... I really worry this may be my outcome... I've been reading various reports about myxomatosis and generally it take 2 weeks, but apparently there is a California strain that can kill within 48 of any symptoms or they never show symptoms, just sudden death. There's also some reports that severe facial swelling can lead to suffocation.
I had a friend who had the RHD hit her communal outdoor rabbits, she went from 80 to about 5 within a few weeks. Fortunately I didn't see any signs of nasal bleeding or rectal bleeding and I couldn't find reports of facial swelling being a part of RHD.
I'm kicking myself, I took in a trio of meat rabbits from someone 2 almost 3 months ago, I quarantined then per usual. But the male came with really scarred/scabby ears. The original owner said he just got an ear infection that got out of hand, but was clearing up. Which it does happen, so I kept them clean, but of course he would scrape them up as the healing started, so they are very scarred. I was just going to cull him, but it just seemed like a normal severe case of ear infection, so I didn't. Now that I'm reading all these articles, theres some reports of some that get the virus more mildly and can have it for several weeks without dying from it, but they will get sores and lesions, either on the legs, face, or ears and can leave the ears scaly and scarred... it's a lesson to me... even if it looks a non serious thing, never trust it... I mean I could still be just by chance he has bad ears and my lops face swelled leading to death... I'm going to keep updating this post if anything else happens. Use my experience as education for myself and others...

 

[Lil Acorn Acres Farm]

I was reading about this myoxomatosis and the information says it is transmitted by fleas. Biting flies and direct contact with an infected animal. So was your rabbit near the new trio? If not that then the culprit might be cross contamination doing your barn chores, or the biting insects.
For me, if the trio are good in a couple weeks, then it's impossible to have a clear reason.
Biting bugs are what's left, and that is very hard to control.
I know this doesn't help. Sorry for your loss. This isn't your fault. It's nothing you did.

 

[PoppyLapine]

Fortunately, I don't have fleas, i have flys though, they come and go. Also, their cages are right next to eachother and while doing feeding and watering its very easy for cross contamination to happen. As I only use caution with sanitizing my hands between the main rabbits and any in the quarantine room. The trio has appeared healthy in the 2-3 months I've had them, other then the buck having scarred/scabby ears. So, hopefully they really aren't the cause, and what happened with the lop was just a one time accurance..

 

[eco2pia]

do you have rodents that could carry fleas?

 

[PoppyLapine]

do you have rodents that could carry fleas?

No, I have never seen any mice or rats in my rabbit barn. Its a sealed insulated building. I do have cats that live in there, but I've never seen fleas on them.

 

[PoppyLapine]

Decided to give a little update. It's been 11 days since the lop had the swelling and 10 days since she passed. Saturday will be the 2 week mark of the recommended quarantine time. So far none of the other rabbits have shown any signs. The rabbit in the cage above the passed rabbit and the rabbit in th cage below her both started losing their usual appetite a few days after she passed. But after a couple days of that, their appetites came back and everything is back to normal. They were going through a molt, so I assume that was the reason to lost appetite. The ones that had the closest contact with the lop was her last litter of 6, which I removed from her cage a week before she had the swelling happen. So I've been keeping an especially close eye on them. But they seem completely healthy.