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Scanning / Bad Eyesight

sidereus7

sidereus7

Mama Doe
The first time I posted on this forum (awww! :love:), I posted about my rabbit's head moving back and forth. It seemed that the consensus was a behavior known as "scanning" which indicates bad eyesight.

I haven't really had a lot of issues with her, but when I call her over to me, she'll stop and scan first, then run over to me.

But today, she ran head first into her cage door and looked pretty shocked by it. She sat there a moment, just scanning, then moved on and started running and binkying again.

I'm afraid that she could hurt herself, as she runs really fast when she plays outside of the cage. Does anyone else have a rabbit with bad eyesight? How do you protect them from themselves?
 
:wave: my rabbit salt is a red eye too, and she scans constantly!! she doesnt really run into things, but she gets scared at the tiniest noise or movement, i was wondering if that was due to bad eyesight. Im not sure what could be done to help, maybe jus make sure things arent in her way to run in to? its a wee sin, wish we could help them more!!
 
Stitch was blind. He occasionally bumped his head on things but once he knew the layout he was fine and I had to make sure not to change where the coffee table was :lol:

Maybe her sight is getting worse as she is getting older, has she been back to the vets lately so they can check the backs of her eyes?
 
Elwood and a few of my other bunnies are blind. Elwood is a nightmare for tearing around, he is always going into things but it doesn't seem to bother him. Bessie and Lottie also use to bump into furniture quite a bit but went at a slower pace so never really hurt themselves.

All you can do is make sure everything stays in the same place and nothing is left lying around that they can trip over.

If she is still running around at speed it obviously isn't bothering her and she is enjoying life. I just wouldn't leave her free ranging too much on her own as you need to be about incase she does possibly hurt herself :)
 
My Biscuit has reddish blue eyes and scans (it's how we came about owning him, my Grandparents rescued him from a breeder that was going to give him away as snake food because his eyesight isn't perfect). Thankfully he has never had any problems with bumping into things, he absolutely races around the garden and doesn't get caught out even when we change things around. I think most bunnies adapt pretty well even if they have the odd accident. My REW went to the bridge recently and I fully expected her to scan but she never did and to this day I have no idea if she had a problem with her eyesight, I don't think she did or she was very well adapted. I do keep a close eye on Biscuit and will continue to do so as he gets older (he's 2 1/2 right now).
 
I don't think that Mimi is entirely blind. How bad is a rabbit's eyesight normally if they're at the scanning stage? She is only 3 months old.

She's only crashed once or twice, and I don't know whether I should chalk it up to a baby bunny not knowing her own speed, or a vision problem.

She comes to me when I call her, but maybe that's her hearing compensating. She does have trouble locating her food dish if I move it on her. She stops and scans before she makes any big run across the room.

What should a vet check for to confirm bad eyesight?

Poor Mimi :(
 
Hi, Billy was born with congenital cattaracts (apologies if spelling is wrong) and he's is partially sighted. I've found he gets around absolutely fine he's just a bit more cautious in a new place but once he knows where things are he's off and racing around as much as the others.
 
Bunnies who have red eyes or are descendants of red eyed bunnies even though their eyes are now dark still perform the 'scanning' process. This is not an eyesight fault its just a congenital trait that effects red eyes and nothing to worry about :D. I have two lops (house bunnies) one a dwarf, called Smudge, who does not have any red eye in his history and does not scan yet still runs into things as bunnies generally have a blind spot in front of their noses due to the position of their eyes. My mini lop, Coco, who has albino red eyes in her ancestry even though hers are dark. When we first had her we noticed she was scanning as were worried she had an eyesight problem :( but a quick phonecall to the breeder confirm (what we had read on the web) that this is just a trait and nothing to worry about :). Hope this puts your mind at rest. ;)
 
Hugo's There said:
Elwood and a few of my other bunnies are blind. Elwood is a nightmare for tearing around, he is always going into things but it doesn't seem to bother him. Bessie and Lottie also use to bump into furniture quite a bit but went at a slower pace so never really hurt themselves.

All you can do is make sure everything stays in the same place and nothing is left lying around that they can trip over.

If she is still running around at speed it obviously isn't bothering her and she is enjoying life. I just wouldn't leave her free ranging too much on her own as you need to be about incase she does possibly hurt herself :)
Click to expand...

:thumb: Great advice - as if it would be any other from Hugo's There with all your experience.:D

Normal bunny sight is totally different from ours with an extensive blind spot bang in front, about 30degrees of 3D vision to the front, & the rest more like our peripheral vision - 2D. Their total field of vision is nearer 270 degrees
Even a normal bunny relies heavily on an internal map of where things are in their environment, but obviously a visually impaired bunny relies totally on this.
Scanning virtually always indicates some degree of visual impairment.

Unlike us, bunnies rely heavily on hearing, smell, & even vibrations through their feet to detect moving, living things, recognising us, & each other mainly by scent.

I'm trying to say that with other highly developed senses visual impairment is less of a handicap to getting around for buns, than it would be to us.
I have known my normal sighted bun to run smack into a white clothes dryer (not usually there) in the middle of a dark maroon carpet. He's also run away from me in terror when I've come in scented with a dog I've petted. Importantly he doesn't scan.
 
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