Rabbit ingested antirobe - help

My 4 year old rabbit had an abcess on her jaw last week and the vet operated and drained it sucessfully. When i got her home after the initial operation, she was fine and ate quite well. The vet told us to clean out the abcess daily and place the powder from an antibiotic capsule in the wound. We have done this and the wound seems to be healing fine. However 2 days later her stomach started rumbling and she was clearly in a lot of pain. She stopped eating and drinking. when it took her back to the vet, he gave her a pain killer and some more antibiotic capsules. The antibiotic given is antirobe. I have just been reading the web on the effects of this antibiotic on rabbits but cannot find any help on what to do if the drug has been ingested. Has anyone got any advice or had the same thing happen to their rabbit. I have spoken to the vet, who said the amount she would have ingested from just washing her face would be very small and would only give her mild diahorrea, but I am not happy with that opinion from what I have read and do not know what to do. She is eating some hay and has just eaten lots of grass but will not drink or eat any other food.

Oh dear

Certainly it would be a good idea to give your Rabbit fluid therapy, subcutaneous or IV

Some Questran (Cholestyramine) may be of benefit. It can mop up enterotoxins

http://homepage.mac.com/mattocks/morfz/questran.html

Is she receiving regular pain relief ?

I also wonder if giving Metronidazole may be appropriate to try to minimisethe overgrowth of clostridium in her guts :?

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...&resnum=6&ved=0CEkQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

thank you so much for your prompt response and for your advice. I am going to take my bunny to another emergency vet this very evening. I will let you know how I get on.

No advice. Good luck at the vets tonight.

yvonnef said:

thank you so much for your prompt response and for your advice. I am going to take my bunny to another emergency vet this very evening. I will let you know how I get on.

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Sending lots of luck, please keep us updated xx

well I am back from the vets and incredibly glad I went. he listened to her stomach and could not hear her gut working at all. he gave her an injection to stimulate her gut, I don't remember the name as he faxed it to my own vet, so I will get the name tomorrow. he suggested I take her again to see my vet in the morning to get another injection and for check up. he also gave her some bio lapis to be given in a syringe every hour throughout the night to try and build up the good bacteria and to balance out the bad. plus some recovery liquid feed also to be given throughout the night. it's going to be a long night but she is worth it. she is eating grass from the garden like there is no tomorrow which is difficult to collect for her now since it is dark and raining but I keep on going to get it as long as she eats it. the vet would not be drawn on the use of antirole by the other vets and stated that this could have happened as a trauma from the operation anyway, which of course is true enough. I am not, at this stage wanting to apportion blame just want to get her well again. thanks for everyones thoughts and advice. I will keep you posted of her progress.

I hope she is doing OK this morning. Sounds like you did the right thing.

she is still with us and despite being very stressed by being force fed every few hours is nibbling away at some fresh grass. thank you for your support it is really appreciated.

Thought I should update you on my bunnies progress. I took her back the vet on Tuesday as advised by the emergency vert the evening before. I think the vet thought I was paranoid, but agreed to take my bunny in (free of charge) for observation, medication to get here gut restarted and to rehydrate her. I picked he up on Wednesday evening. She is looking a lot better. She ate lots of grass, in fact like it was going out of fashion, she ate all her bowl of food and drank half a bowl of water, so I was really pleased when I woke up this morning. Still getting the odd grumble from her stomach, but on the whole I think she is improving. Going to keep my eye on her for the next few days though. Thanks for everyones help and support.

:wave: Glad she is OK.

Glad to hear she seems to be on the mend, keep going little girl!