Pinworm

Hi :wave:

Can anyone give me info on their own personal experiences of pinworm?

In 20 years of having rabbits I had never come across it before (although now I'm inclined to believe I just didn't know they were there). I got my youngest rabbits two days after Christmas...and I found out a short while later that she came to me quite heavily infested with Pinworm. I freaked out and put all of my rabbits on a nine day course of panacur. During the first few days of being on it A LOT of worms were dead in her litter tray and then i saw no more...so I thought it had worked. However, five months on I now discover she has got them again! I was going to worm routinely twice a year but now I think i'll have to do it more often. I know vets say stress can cause an infestation to show, and she has had a pretty stressful time these past six weeks, first she was spayed and didn't do well after that, then a week later she was attacked my another rabbit and had to have emergency surgery so I don't know if that has got anything to do with it.

Does anyone have any suggestions about where it could be coming from? she is a house rabbit so doesn't go on the grass and her hay I buy from my local pet store but it comes from a farm bale. I am obsessed with cleaning and clean everything every day and disinfect everything every other day so I don't think it's anything to do with that. Could it be that she was never completely rid of them when I finished the worming and I just haven't seen any more worms to realise they were still there??

I hate stuff like this

mmmmm tricky.....

I would definately say extend your panacuring to at least6 28 days and make sure you are giving her the correct dose for her weight (it is one graduation per 2.5 kg of bunny, e.g if she is 2.6kg she should get two graduations)

I don't think pin worms could survive out of grass so your house should be OK as long as you hoover religously.

the only other thing I can think of is hay or grass that might be contaminated by wild rabbits or if they have come into contact with cats/dogs with worms.

ecudc said:

mmmmm tricky.....

I would definately say extend your panacuring to at least6 28 days and make sure you are giving her the correct dose for her weight (it is one graduation per 2.5 kg of bunny, e.g if she is 2.6kg she should get two graduations)

I don't think pin worms could survive out of grass so your house should be OK as long as you hoover religously.

the only other thing I can think of is hay or grass that might be contaminated by wild rabbits or if they have come into contact with cats/dogs with worms.

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Thanks for that! the panacur dosaging is confusing me. I would have presumed if she was 2.6 kg that she would get one and a bit of a graduation as opposed to two??? (she's only 1.4kg ).

I am going to panacur them all for 28 days and afterwards I will be doing them every three months. Thing is she is eating hay from the same place as she was getting it from when I first got her. It's from a farm bale and she doesn't go onto the grass in the garden so i know it's not that. I'm thinking it's the hay and maybe wild buns have been on there, but then why have none of my other bunnies ever shown signs of worms and they get the same stuff?

I don't think they catch worms from cats or dogs as rabbits pinworm is species specific so it can't be passed on to other pets or people. I know stress causes it to flare up but surely the parasite must already be there for it to become an infestation anyway!
arrgghhh I hate things like this.

she should have one whole gradiation. It is very hard to OD on panacur. The does is basically

0 - 2.5 kg = 1 grad
2.5 - 5 kg = 2 grad
5 - 7.5kg = 3 grad

ecudc said:

she should have one whole gradiation. It is very hard to OD on panacur. The does is basically

0 - 2.5 kg = 1 grad
2.5 - 5 kg = 2 grad
5 - 7.5kg = 3 grad

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Yeah I overdosed them the last time using the old style syringe...my batch didn't come with a leaflet and I thought that one graduation was blue line to blue line...but that was actually two graduations.

I will follow what you say. Thanks!!

charlie82 said:

I don't think they catch worms from cats or dogs as rabbits pinworm is species specific so it can't be passed on to other pets or people. I know stress causes it to flare up but surely the parasite must already be there for it to become an infestation anyway!
arrgghhh I hate things like this.

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i think worms can come from the mother, through the milk or something. my bun had pinworms and seeing them made me feel sick! they cleared up on 9 days of panacur and i will continue doing it every 3 months. maybe something remains in the system and that's why they reappeared after 5 months? i don't know, sorry.

Lauralou said:

i think worms can come from the mother, through the milk or something. my bun had pinworms and seeing them made me feel sick! they cleared up on 9 days of panacur and i will continue doing it every 3 months. maybe something remains in the system and that's why they reappeared after 5 months? i don't know, sorry.

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Hi Laura,

I think you are right...
Phoebe was very tiny when I first got her and between 6-8 weeks old (not sure of her exact age) so I put it down to her having them from her mother. Perhaps the panacur didn't kill them all when I first wormed her and she has had them all this time. I think maybe it's only when it's a heavy infestation that you begin to see them in the droppings. Thank fully I have never seen any alive and I hope I don't have to...seeing them there at all is bad enough!!! I wonder if some buns are more susceptible too. What makes me feel ill is that she sleeps on my bed...:shock: will have to put a stop to that until she is de-wormed

charlie82 said:

Hi Laura,

I think you are right...
Phoebe was very tiny when I first got her and between 6-8 weeks old (not sure of her exact age) so I put it down to her having them from her mother. Perhaps the panacur didn't kill them all when I first wormed her and she has had them all this time. I think maybe it's only when it's a heavy infestation that you begin to see them in the droppings. Thank fully I have never seen any alive and I hope I don't have to...seeing them there at all is bad enough!!! I wonder if some buns are more susceptible too. What makes me feel ill is that she sleeps on my bed...:shock: will have to put a stop to that until she is de-wormed

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i saw one alive on a poop he did on my lap, urgh! i felt so ill when all the dead ones were coming out with his poop. makes me feel all itchy thinking about it! i was just reading under "parasites" on here - rabbit references but can't find the article where i read about it passing through the mothers milk. you might find the website good though, i always go on there when i'm bored! :lol:

Lauralou said:

i saw one alive on a poop he did on my lap, urgh! i felt so ill when all the dead ones were coming out with his poop. makes me feel all itchy thinking about it! i was just reading under "parasites" on here - rabbit references but can't find the article where i read about it passing through the mothers milk. you might find the website good though, i always go on there when i'm bored! :lol:

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That's horrible!! I think I would actually throw up if I saw them alive...now I have said that I haven't seen any alive yet no doubt I will later. It's ironic really because I didn't know how common it was for bunnies to get worms and was reading another members post on pinworms in January, thought to myself how lucky I was never to have experienced it and literally two minutes later walked upstairs to find a worm on phoebe's poop. :shock:

My Ra had pinworms this time last year, and a 9 day course seems to have cleared him, although I panacur all my rabbits every 6 months now on a 9 day course.

I guess that as they eat their caecotrophs there is a chance that your rabbit re-ingested the worm through that towards the end of the 9 day course, and it managed to survive????