• Forum/Server Upgrade If you are reading this you have made it to the upgraded forum. Posts made on the old forum after 26th October 2023 have not been transfered. Everything else should be here. If you find any issues please let us know.

Snuffle bunnies - swabs and treatment.

Jenova

Wise Old Thumper
Sorry if this should be in health.

I was just wondering how much you paid to get swabs done on your bunnies with snuffles/pasteurella. Grim is so much better on Baytril where as the depocillin didn't seem to touch it, but he still has symptoms. He's not had a sample taken because the Baytril seemed to work really well and we're probably just going to have to keep him on it long term.

He still has a discharge though but he rarely sneezes unless he gets a nose plug which irritates his nose. Is this normal? I'm assuming that even the best antibiotic might not clear it up completely? The infection is in his right nostril only and so far hasn't spread to his lungs. But he also gets a lot of infections in his eyes so we (that's me and the vet by the way) think that it's related and possibly in his tear duct or a tooth root. The depocillin interestingly helps his eyes a lot better than the Baytril does but his snuffles get worse. On the Baytril his nose is better but his eyes worse so he has eye drops as well and these are helping stop the nose plugs as well. I can't remember the exact reason for this but my vet and then Thumps_ explained it to me. :oops:
 
Buckley's swab was £47.50 :)
And he was a very good bunny and blew his nose on the swab for the vet. There was so much bunneh boogers :mrgreen:
 
Brian is a snuffle bun. His swabs were about £45 and his x-rays were about £60.

He is on baytril and bisolven long term now, as its the only thing that keeps it manageable.
 
Grim would never let anyone touch his nose. :shock:
I was going to ask about doing it on Friday when he has his operation, but I'm not sure it would be worth the money, which is money I don't really have. I'm getting some tax back and a lot more that I thought I'd be getting, which sort of takes me out of the red, mostly. I still can't afford it but I could do it if it would help.
 
I /think/ the swabs are more worthwhile if they are done deeply into the nasal cavity where most of the infection lives. I read that on here somewhere. So it might be worthwhile getting it done under the anaesthetic anyway, if you're going to go for it.
 
I /think/ the swabs are more worthwhile if they are done deeply into the nasal cavity where most of the infection lives. I read that on here somewhere. So it might be worthwhile getting it done under the anaesthetic anyway, if you're going to go for it.

I agree! If you get a snot swab, it's most likely to just be dead bacteria so they won't be able to culture anything. It also needs to be done when the bun has been clear of antibiotics for a while, because the abx will affect the bacteria there and may give a 'false' reading of what is causing the problem and what antibiotic/s might be appropriate to tackle it.

We never managed to get a positive result from a culture with Santa and her teeny nasal passages, even with a deep nasal swab under GA; but what was still useful was a cytology analysis which we had done. My vet did a tear duct flush under GA and collected a load of the goo which came out of the nose and sent it for analysis. This showed up a lot of dead white blood cells (indicating infection) as well as inflammatory and allergy response cells. So useful to do because it enabled us to tackle her snuffles through a range of interventions rather than just antibiotic.

I seem to recall that the swab/cytology were about £50 each.
 
Thanks. He's been on antibiotics long term and I'm not sure I'd want to stop them to get the swap done as he's much better on them. Good to know that.
 
just the swabs was around £50 i think.. you can even have a seperate one from each nostril if one nostril seems worse for some reason.

it's best taken under a ga so it can be taken from the very back of the nose.
 
Back
Top