Carrie1983
Warren Scout
Hi there. I am new, so please forgive me for my first post being quite so negative, but I have read lots of the posts here in recent weeks and can't believe I didn't find it before. So helpful!
Anyway, I have a 3 year old (3 this month) giant rabbit called Zebedee. I have had him for nearly 3 years, and being the animal-mad couple that we are, he is treated like a king (we also have 2 horses and 2 cats). He has a very healthy diet and the vet says he has never seen a rabbit so well looked after, forgetting the fact he rarely sees rabbits anyway because people don't seem to think they need vet care.
He is a part house/part garden rabbit. He has a huge house for himself in the garden and he also comes indoors to run around and have cuddles. He has always been a very fun and lively bunny. Over winter, due to our building work, he came in and rarely went in his garden house or in the garden, but had a whole room to run around in the house all for himself. In Feb/March when the time came for him to go back out in his house, he seemed a little stiff on one hind leg, and this was obvious because he wasn't jumping in and out of his house or racing round like normal. We mentioned it to the vet at his bi-annual jabs/check and the vet just said to keep an eye on it - there was no issue with the rabbit stretching his legs when the vet pulled them, and at that time he was still hopping normally and not really dragging anything.
About 1-2 weeks later, the bunny seemed to be getting less stiff as he began jumping in and out of his house and being his usual self. The he managed to jump and land awkwardly on the ground, twisting his back end as he fell. That same night, we noticed he'd cut his hind paw, so we treated that and assumed it had been because he fell, but equally it could have been a matter of him dragging the leg due to hurting it. A short time later, we noticed he was dragging the back legs, which sometimes went away and sometimes got quite bad. Everything else was normal and healthy (and still is) and he even managed to hop around normally a lot of the time, mainly struggling when getting up from a lying down position or if he'd been curled up for too long. It really was/is quite horrible to watch such a lively bunny struggle to get a grip or any power in his back legs to propel himself up and down levels in his house/hop around properly/get himself up. It seems to be his back right leg that is hurt.
Anyway, so not being ones to shun our responsibilities with our animals, we immediately took him to the vet who checked him over and found nothing obvious. Here is what we have done/eliminated so far.
Eyes are normal.
Ears are normal and cleaned occasionally using a fluid given to us by the vet.
Everything in the mouth is normal.
Claws are all fine.
Coat is fine.
Weight is fine and has not gone up or down.
He is eating as normal.
Drinking as normal.
Pooing and weeing as normal.
Seems to be happy enough, although gets miserable if made to stay in a small space as advised by the vet for obvious reasons.
Xrays showed no breaks to legs, feet, back, hips, neck. No arthritis. No disc problems. No inflammation in the spine that they could see.
He has no contact with other rabbits, so chances of EC were deemed to be slim by the vet, but he is regularly done with panacur anyway. We put him on another course of panacur, although he showed no other signs of EC according to our vet and they doubted it would be that.
GI Stasis has been ruled out.
He has a reasonably large dose of Metacam every day, due to being a large bunny, which seems to help, but as he has it in the evenings (not really a bit enough dose to split), he is worse in the mornings (he does seem to be worse at certain times of day when he seems to almost stiffen up).
Contacted the vet the other day to let her know his leg had not improved (this has gone on for several weeks), and we are now at the stage of being referred, by her, to a specialist vet.
What other things can it possibly be? The vet mentioned possible nerve damage or possibly a sprain/ligament or tendon damage. I also wondered about infection (I have had horses in the past go lame from infection of the joints and was not sure if this was possible in rabbits).
I am quite knowledgeable and very thorough, but I am stumped here. Surely a sprain/ligament problem should be getting better after so many weeks (we are talking since about the end of April now)? Plus, he'd already showed signs of stiffness when he came back outdoors, before he had his little fall, although none of the dragging etc. I am aware that nerve damage could be a long term problem.
Any other ideas?
Thank you so much.
Anyway, I have a 3 year old (3 this month) giant rabbit called Zebedee. I have had him for nearly 3 years, and being the animal-mad couple that we are, he is treated like a king (we also have 2 horses and 2 cats). He has a very healthy diet and the vet says he has never seen a rabbit so well looked after, forgetting the fact he rarely sees rabbits anyway because people don't seem to think they need vet care.
He is a part house/part garden rabbit. He has a huge house for himself in the garden and he also comes indoors to run around and have cuddles. He has always been a very fun and lively bunny. Over winter, due to our building work, he came in and rarely went in his garden house or in the garden, but had a whole room to run around in the house all for himself. In Feb/March when the time came for him to go back out in his house, he seemed a little stiff on one hind leg, and this was obvious because he wasn't jumping in and out of his house or racing round like normal. We mentioned it to the vet at his bi-annual jabs/check and the vet just said to keep an eye on it - there was no issue with the rabbit stretching his legs when the vet pulled them, and at that time he was still hopping normally and not really dragging anything.
About 1-2 weeks later, the bunny seemed to be getting less stiff as he began jumping in and out of his house and being his usual self. The he managed to jump and land awkwardly on the ground, twisting his back end as he fell. That same night, we noticed he'd cut his hind paw, so we treated that and assumed it had been because he fell, but equally it could have been a matter of him dragging the leg due to hurting it. A short time later, we noticed he was dragging the back legs, which sometimes went away and sometimes got quite bad. Everything else was normal and healthy (and still is) and he even managed to hop around normally a lot of the time, mainly struggling when getting up from a lying down position or if he'd been curled up for too long. It really was/is quite horrible to watch such a lively bunny struggle to get a grip or any power in his back legs to propel himself up and down levels in his house/hop around properly/get himself up. It seems to be his back right leg that is hurt.
Anyway, so not being ones to shun our responsibilities with our animals, we immediately took him to the vet who checked him over and found nothing obvious. Here is what we have done/eliminated so far.
Eyes are normal.
Ears are normal and cleaned occasionally using a fluid given to us by the vet.
Everything in the mouth is normal.
Claws are all fine.
Coat is fine.
Weight is fine and has not gone up or down.
He is eating as normal.
Drinking as normal.
Pooing and weeing as normal.
Seems to be happy enough, although gets miserable if made to stay in a small space as advised by the vet for obvious reasons.
Xrays showed no breaks to legs, feet, back, hips, neck. No arthritis. No disc problems. No inflammation in the spine that they could see.
He has no contact with other rabbits, so chances of EC were deemed to be slim by the vet, but he is regularly done with panacur anyway. We put him on another course of panacur, although he showed no other signs of EC according to our vet and they doubted it would be that.
GI Stasis has been ruled out.
He has a reasonably large dose of Metacam every day, due to being a large bunny, which seems to help, but as he has it in the evenings (not really a bit enough dose to split), he is worse in the mornings (he does seem to be worse at certain times of day when he seems to almost stiffen up).
Contacted the vet the other day to let her know his leg had not improved (this has gone on for several weeks), and we are now at the stage of being referred, by her, to a specialist vet.
What other things can it possibly be? The vet mentioned possible nerve damage or possibly a sprain/ligament or tendon damage. I also wondered about infection (I have had horses in the past go lame from infection of the joints and was not sure if this was possible in rabbits).
I am quite knowledgeable and very thorough, but I am stumped here. Surely a sprain/ligament problem should be getting better after so many weeks (we are talking since about the end of April now)? Plus, he'd already showed signs of stiffness when he came back outdoors, before he had his little fall, although none of the dragging etc. I am aware that nerve damage could be a long term problem.
Any other ideas?
Thank you so much.