Growth on the front of the nose?

Hi, one of my sisters rabbits had a scratch on her nose about 3 weeks ago. We had to take her other rabbit into the vet as she punctured her eye and has to have it removed, and the vet looked at the scratch on her nose as we took both rabbits to the vets. The vet said it should be nothing to worry about it, but it wasn't raised at that time.

In the past week or so the area where the scratch occured has raised and the skin feels hard, looks almost like a wart on the tip of the nose. Here are some pictures:

http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/2210/dsc00002ka6.jpg

http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/9066/dsc00003js1.jpg

http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/876/dsc00004ym3.jpg

It's not blocking her nostrils at all, she can breathe fine and she is still eating/drinking/urinating/defecating/running around. She is occasionally sneezing but her breathing is not irregular or anything. It's not very visible in the photos but the sides of the raised area are brown/blackish, like when a scab is healing up. She doesn't seem irritated by it and we've not seen her trying to scratch it, but we originally thought it could have been a cut that wasn't healing as she was scratching it open.

Does anyone have any idea as to what it could be? We have to take the other rabbit to get its eye removed and sewn up on thursday and we will be taking both of them because of this scratch. She is healthy and shows no signs of irregular behaviour. It puzzles us as to what this might be.

it could be infected or it could be a large scab forming it is very hard to see as your photos are so large that teh imge becomes blurry. a vet will ebst diagnose. poor buns

Sorry for the blurry photos, my camera phone seems to be incapable of taking close up photos. The first image is the most visible as I took it from the side of her face.

Yep, I agree, it could be an infected cut in which case antibiotics will be needed.

Another option would be syphilis in which case a course of weekly penicillin injections would be the treatment.

A normal healthy cut should have healed over fairly neatly within 10 days, so if she's had it three weeks she definitely needs to see a vet for further investigation.

Tam

i think it could be inflammed and possibly need antibiotics, if your rabbit was in pain it is very hard to tell teeth grinding is oftern a symptom or being off their food but many buns dont show any signs its up to a vet to jude really. i would say it does look a bit nasty though and more than just a scratch.

We've not checked her underside for any sores/lesions which are supposed to be a sign of syphilis but we're going to look tonight. She's not been teeth grinding and we've not seen her off her food (she still eats a lot!). Thanks for the help.

Im sorry I cant see the pictures very well.It could be an infection and like you say healing up.Most bunny cuts heal up pretty quickly so you need to get some antibiotics.Have your sisters buns been vaccinated against Myxi?Also ask your vet for some pain relief Eg metecam

Yes, the other rabbit who is having her eye out has been on metacam for 2 weeks (1ml twice a day in the first week, and now 2ml twice a day until thursday). They haven't been vaccinated against myxi for a while now and we were advised not to vaccinate them yet as the other rabbit's defense systems would be focusing on the pierced eye + infection and the vaccination would have little effect. The other rabbit's eye infection caused a little myximitosis scare but they both shows no signs of myxi.

dph said:

We've not checked her underside for any sores/lesions which are supposed to be a sign of syphilis but we're going to look tonight. She's not been teeth grinding and we've not seen her off her food (she still eats a lot!). Thanks for the help.

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You don't necessarily get sores underneath as well. So while there being some would be a good indication it is syphilis, if there aren't any it doesn't mean its not

Cause they eat poop from their vent area and groom without washing their hands first it can appear on the nose/eye lids, ears instead of the underside.