Weepy eye but not what you think

[CedarRidge]

We’ve got a young buck that developed weepy eye at 6 weeks. Had a hair in it, so we rinsed it out. A day later it was still weeping, so we dosed with terramycin for 5 days, twice a day. He got better and went a month without another occurrence, then it happened again. We doused again and it cleared up for another month. Yesterday his eye was weepy again, and we found another hair in his eye. Rinsed it out, dosed him one time, and today he was fine. Have any of you had problems with foreign bodies getting in the eyes of your rabbits? We are also concerned about him using his feeder, which has pellets that sit directl below a hay stash. Seems that when he reaches for his pellets, he’s shoving his eyes into his hay. (Now we put His pellets in a separate bowl away from the hay.). We have 5 rabbits and this is the only one that has eye issues caused by foreign bodies. Thoughts?

 

[Alaska Satin]

We’ve got a young buck that developed weepy eye at 6 weeks. Had a hair in it, so we rinsed it out. A day later it was still weeping, so we dosed with terramycin for 5 days, twice a day. He got better and went a month without another occurrence, then it happened again. We doused again and it cleared up for another month. Yesterday his eye was weepy again, and we found another hair in his eye. Rinsed it out, dosed him one time, and today he was fine. Have any of you had problems with foreign bodies getting in the eyes of your rabbits? We are also concerned about him using his feeder, which has pellets that sit directl below a hay stash. Seems that when he reaches for his pellets, he’s shoving his eyes into his hay. (Now we put His pellets in a separate bowl away from the hay.). We have 5 rabbits and this is the only one that has eye issues caused by foreign bodies. Thoughts?

We've had two rabbits with weepy eyes as a result of nest box injuries to their eyelids, which my daughter figured out caused their eyelashes to poke into their eyes. Are his eyelids perfect, or could his eyelashes be bothering him, maybe turned in a bit? If his eyes are already irritated, he could very well be pushing the hairs you're finding in his eyes by scratching them in there, in which case it's not the hairs actually causing the problem.

I've also had a rabbit who allergic to hay - really! It took me months to figure out that his intermittent weepy eyes always came after I'd given the rabbits hay (I don't give hay regularly). The woman I sold him to, with the warning that he was allergic to hay, told me she gave him the same eye drops she used for her own allergies, which totally solved his problem!

If you've done that many courses of terramycin with the problem recurring repeatedly, I'd begin to be hesitant to continue using the drug since you could be creating a resistant pathogen. Especially if the eye was better after a rinse and 1 dose, it could be that the rinsing is what's helpful, rather than the antibiotic.

I've never had a rabbit constantly get things in his eyes, but it's always struck me how resistant rabbits' eyes are to foreign objects. Sometimes a bunny will have a glob of fur or mucous sitting directly on their eyeball and they just ignore it, no attempt to paw it off or anything. It drives me crazy and I usually have to get it off them myself, but I notice that when I don't, it's always gone the next time I look, with no lasting ill effects.