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Help - Problem with Honey's man bits???

lucyj

Mama Doe
Hi

For about 6 weeks, Honey has been gettin repeated urine scalds on his legs, it happened twice - flared up (fur loss and pink sore looking skin), i cleaned him up, it healed, and then it flared up again, (nb the bedding is regularly changed he is not standing in wet bedding) the third time it happened (2 weeks ago) I took him to the vet, who said that it was possibly just as they are 7 years old now, and it has been a long cold winter, that it possibly just that he is getting a little arthritic and sore and so not been able to groom properly. She prescribed him a week course of baytril 0.5ml, and metacam (dose for 2.5kg rabbit, him weighing 2.6kg). His leg healed up well, and then I took him back last saturday for follow-up appointment. She said she was happy with the healing on his leg, told me to keep him on metacam for a little while until better weather comes in, and gave me another course of baytril to keep in house "just incase" his legs flared up again meantime.

Today I have taken him inside as I noticed around his bum was a little dirty, and to clean up his legs again now that they are well healed, while I have been cleaning and drying him I noticed he was tender around his genital area (the vet did not look at his genital area when he was there to see if there may be a problem), so I tried to have a gentle look. Im not to up on the anatomy of his genitalia as haven't really looked in there before, so Ill explain as best I can....where his lil round bit is, along each side of that is like 2 slits from top to bottom, when I gently opened up 1, inside at the bottom there is a small white lump and a red sore, and the slit was full of brown goo which smelled absolutely putrid, I gently cleaned out as much as I could but there is some crusty brown stuff around the white lump/red sore. I looked at the other side, in the slit, and at the bottom there is what may be a small glad of some type, or a small ulcer, and it has a small red sore beside it. Any suggestions at all as to what it may be? I have given Honey a 0.5ml dose of the baytril and the 2.5kg dose of the metacam, my partner thinks it is an infection of some type so I was planning giving him the full course of baytril (which would end on weds) and if its not clear by then, taking him to the vet. Meantime, any suggestions/help would be appreciated
 
ps there also looks to be a couple of tiny white lumps on the end of his man bit, which I thought were puss, and tried to gently remove, but they are more like spots and I didnt want to poke and prod as it was clearly tender
 
The slits with the gunk in are his scent glands. It's normal for them to have smelly gunk in as some rabbits can't/won't clean them themselves. You can clean them for him though with some cotten wool and cooled boiled water with a little salt in.

The urine scalding is quite worrying. It could be some sort of bladder issue such as a UTI or a build up of sludge/bladder crystals. What does his urine look like? Is it chalky? It could even be that he is unable to get into the proper position to pee if he is overweight or has arthritis or an injury.

Sorry to not be much help but there are lots of reasons he could be suffering with this, probably more than I have listed.
 
Thanks Rhian, I have beee doing some googling meantime, and read about what u said, that that is his glands, I think the 1 side is normal then as it just had a little brown smelly gunk in it, but the other side is very red and sore looking and has a swollen lump inside it at the very base, and loads of the smelly gunk. I suppose the lump looks the equivalent to a boil on a human, but obvs not that size! Could it be that if his man bit is sore it is affecting his urine? I dont really see his urine, they live outdoors and use a litter tray in their run that has litter and wood shavings in
 
Thanks Rhian, I have beee doing some googling meantime, and read about what u said, that that is his glands, I think the 1 side is normal then as it just had a little brown smelly gunk in it, but the other side is very red and sore looking and has a swollen lump inside it at the very base, and loads of the smelly gunk. I suppose the lump looks the equivalent to a boil on a human, but obvs not that size! Could it be that if his man bit is sore it is affecting his urine? I dont really see his urine, they live outdoors and use a litter tray in their run that has litter and wood shavings in

Yes, it could well be the position that he is peeing in that's causing the urine to go down his legs caused by his sore bits and this may just be getting him into a vicious circle. If it was me I would try and get some advice from a vet about the best way to clear up his sore manly bits are which will probably be antibiotics, cleaning and maybe some cream to put on the sore areas and see if this helps.

In the meantime you can monitor his pee by taking out the woodshavings (I'm not a fan of these anyway), use litter in the litter tray lined with newspaper as newspaper is normally useful for sowing up calcium deposits.
 
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