Hello
I first apologise for requesting urgent advice in my first post, but I could do with some advice before tomorrow evening.
We have a 4 year old male Lionhead house rabbit called Simba. Over the last few weeks his right eye has been weeping quite a bit. At first we started to bathe it on a night, but last week I noticed some white discharge coming from around his tearduct. We investigated further and found that gently pressing below his eye caused more discharge to appear. The next day he was straight to the vets and the vet said it was likely conjunctivitus and gave us some drops. He asked us to come back in 2 days to see if the drops had started to take effect. We went back in 2 days and although the eye was still weeping slightly it had improved and the redness and discharge were gone. He said that to be certain we should go back in 5 days for a free appointment to check the eye. This brings me to the issue...
When I arrived at the vets tonight it was a different vet and he looked at the notes from the previous visits. The eye was still weeping slightly, but is ten times better than it was last week. He asked about Simba's diet which I explained was a mix of standard rabbit and lots of grass/hay. He said that the standard rabbit food is not ideal because the rabbits pick and choose and it doesn't grind down the teeth, but Simba eats it all and he loves his hay. He then checked Simba's teeth - we have had another rabbit with teeth problems in the past and we do check Simba's teeth ourselves and they look absolutely fine to me. He said that although Simba's jaw feels fine he said he thought there maybe some overgrowth and he needed an xray and his back teeth grinding down and he also needs neutering at the same time so he will need anaesthetising.
Simba is litter trained and well behaved - he never nips or sprays - so I don't understand why he needs neutering. I also know the dangers of anaesthetising a rabbit, so i'm worried that we're putting him through a risky and expensive operation that isn't really necessary. The other vet found no other problems with Simba? Any advice is greatly appreciated.
I first apologise for requesting urgent advice in my first post, but I could do with some advice before tomorrow evening.
We have a 4 year old male Lionhead house rabbit called Simba. Over the last few weeks his right eye has been weeping quite a bit. At first we started to bathe it on a night, but last week I noticed some white discharge coming from around his tearduct. We investigated further and found that gently pressing below his eye caused more discharge to appear. The next day he was straight to the vets and the vet said it was likely conjunctivitus and gave us some drops. He asked us to come back in 2 days to see if the drops had started to take effect. We went back in 2 days and although the eye was still weeping slightly it had improved and the redness and discharge were gone. He said that to be certain we should go back in 5 days for a free appointment to check the eye. This brings me to the issue...
When I arrived at the vets tonight it was a different vet and he looked at the notes from the previous visits. The eye was still weeping slightly, but is ten times better than it was last week. He asked about Simba's diet which I explained was a mix of standard rabbit and lots of grass/hay. He said that the standard rabbit food is not ideal because the rabbits pick and choose and it doesn't grind down the teeth, but Simba eats it all and he loves his hay. He then checked Simba's teeth - we have had another rabbit with teeth problems in the past and we do check Simba's teeth ourselves and they look absolutely fine to me. He said that although Simba's jaw feels fine he said he thought there maybe some overgrowth and he needed an xray and his back teeth grinding down and he also needs neutering at the same time so he will need anaesthetising.
Simba is litter trained and well behaved - he never nips or sprays - so I don't understand why he needs neutering. I also know the dangers of anaesthetising a rabbit, so i'm worried that we're putting him through a risky and expensive operation that isn't really necessary. The other vet found no other problems with Simba? Any advice is greatly appreciated.