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paralysis in young buns??

Lillian

Warren Veteran
I was just wondering has anyone had a problem with paralysis in young rabbits?

In 2002 i had a bunny called Harry, he was a very special little thing. He was the runt of the litter and seemed really healthy and as playful as the rest. But after he left his litter mates he started becoming ill, he didn't move around much, we took him to the vets and they said he had some muscle damage in his hind legs. He was given some stuff to try and build up the muscles and such and we had to do little excercises with his legs. He seemed to be making progress then one afternoon i came out of my room and saw my mum sitting on my brothers bedroom flooring hold Harry and crying :cry: it was the most heart breaking thing i've ever seen (i was only 12). I asked what was wrong and she said hes going to die isnt he? and i fell down and hugged her and started crying. Harry slowly lost the use of his back legs, and around 10/11 weeks the vets said nothing could be done, he was slowly losing muscle all over and he was pts :cry::cry::cry:

Then a few years later the same happened with my grandads baby bunny. And my baby bun Pipkin, who also had snuffles. The vets haven't been able to tell us what caused it or what could be done other than try some medicines but they always end up being pts at a young age.

Has this happened to any of your buns? Or does anyone know what caused it? Because other than my buns Harry, Pipkin and grandads bun i haven't heard of this happening
 
Anyone???? I really want to know why my Harry and Pipkin had to die so young. I know it was years ago but it still plagues my mind :cry:
 
well in runts i think there is not the right ballence of things in them to live and i do think that musels do not work properly and some thing sin them are not right the vet said that as well when we lost our bunny who was a runt
 
In some litters the mother will cull a baby because she senses it's not right and I guess in the wild a sickly baby would draw attention to the nest by not reacting as fast to predators as the other babies. At the other end of the spectrum is the normal, healthy baby bunny. Maybe the cut-off point between the two is not clear cut so that in pet homes some babies which are not quite "right" do seem to make it, for a while at least, especially in captivity and where the mother is less worried about predators/is being cared for well herself. I'm guessing this would apply to runts particularly. But ultimately nature catches up with them.

Only speculating, but to me it makes sense that the viable/not viable baby rabbit health is a spectrum rather than just the extremes of healthy vs chronically unhealthy. I'm guessing the buns you mention fell somewhere in the middle.

The memory of your mum crying has clearly stayed with you - children hate seeing parents upset, let alone the baby rabbit/reason in this case, but the rabbits you mention are all out of pain now and hopefully at some stage it will haunt you less...
 
Could it have been the E Cuniculi parasite? Benny had EC and it made him lose the use of his back legs temporarily.
 
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