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Milly gets stasis all the time :-( One of them leaking urine too

lja401

Warren Scout
Hi all,
We went away at the weekend and came home to be told that Milly our rabbit had to be taken to the vet yesterday (again!!!) because she would not eat. Thankfully she has perked up after having pain killer, anti biotics and gut medicine. The problem is it is happening all the time, mostly when one of us or both of us is away I might add. She has been moulting a lot recently too but I have tried to brush her.
I am beginning to think there may be something wrong with her as this is about the 6th time this has happened in 2 years. She isn't insured for gut stasis either :-( About a year ago she went to the vet when she wouldn't eat and they did xray and blood tests but didn't find anything.
What can we do to help her? It is so stressful when she is like that.
I also noticed that one of our rabbits (we have another rabbit Noel too) has leaked urine outside in their cage as there was a little amount of orange liquid on the floor of their cage. Noel is currently having some Ceporex for his snuffles. I know that Milly had some Ceporex just before she became ill as she ate the bit of food with it on that Noel was meant to have:( I am worried about the leaky urine. Noel has suspected EC too. They are a dear little pair but boy have they been unlucky with all their illnesses. Milly is also eating a lot of cecals.
Any advice/ideas?
Thank you,
L x
 
She has unlimited supply of hay..she is a pretty good hay eater. No veg and half egg cupful of pellets a day x
 
Is she long haired?
Could be the moult causing the problem. I would try pineapple juice as that is meant to break down hair they ingest so it can be passed easier.
If you do a search for stasis on here you will find hundreds of threads with lots of advice. I do think some bunnies are just prone to it.
What do you mean she is eating lots of cecals? That's normal. When they don't eat them that's when it indicates a problem.

I don't know what to suggest about your other bunny. Has he had tests for EC?
 
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Are the EC bunny and the other bunny together? Has the other bunny been treated for EC too? I had two bunnies with major stasis problems, and it turned out to be an active case of EC passing between them. There have been other people where EC has caused gastric problems too. In my bunnies' cases, unfortunately, a lot of permanent damage had been done by it remaining undiagnosed for quite a while, but treating for EC did help.

Just a thought, anyway.
 
Hi all
Thank you for your replies. Both Milly and Noel are dwarf lops and are a bonded pair of rabbits. They both have panacur every 3 months now. Noel was bad with his EC, he had head tilt and also lost his balance and so was rolling :-( He was treated for Ec. Vet wants me to get a urine sample from Milly to test it for EC. Can EC be tested from urine?I do think it probably is EC sadly as it happens all the time :-(
 
E Cuniculi is normally tested via a blood sample, but it isn't a good and reliable test, as it shows the rabbit's exposure to it, not whether it is currently suffering from the infection. If one rabbit in a pair has it, the other surely will too. Have they both had a 28 day course of the Panacur? Not that it is a 'cure', but it will reduce the numbers of spores.

I'm no expert on it, and others are more up to date. My experience was a few years ago now.

Are you happy with the vet you are seeing at the moment?
 
Thank you for all your replies :)

They had a 28 day course back in December time when Noel was really bad with it. We have never had it confirmed with a blood test but the vet seemed to think it was because of his symptoms. They have since had 10 day courses of Panacur every 3 months. I personally do think she is suffering with it....why else would she have all these episodes of stasis?! I will speak to the vet when I drop the urine sample off...not very easy trying to get a urine sample from her though :(
 
Just be aware that a lot of vets wouldn't consider EC to be an issue here, if there are no other symptoms present. But with both my bunnies, they had none of the traditional EC symptoms. The same has happened with a few other bunny owners on here too.

If you treat one bunny, you need to treat the other though, or they can just keep reinfecting each other. Personally, I'm not sure that a 9 day course would do anything whatsoever.
 
Spoken to vets and I explained everything so they recommended a 28 day course of panacur for both of them. I really think it is ec as Noel had 3 bouts of stasis before the ec symptoms became really bad. Sarah, how long did you manage to keep your ec bunnies going for? My two are 3 years old x x
 
Spoken to vets and I explained everything so they recommended a 28 day course of panacur for both of them. I really think it is ec as Noel had 3 bouts of stasis before the ec symptoms became really bad. Sarah, how long did you manage to keep your ec bunnies going for? My two are 3 years old x x

Sounds good - well worth a try, anyway. The thinking around EC seems to be that you need to clean really well on days 21 and 28 (steam or bleach solution - standard pet disinfectants don't seem to work) in order to kill the spores and prevent reinfection.

With my bunnies, what I found with the Panacur was that its effects in the body were quickly seen (within 36 hours or so I'd see an improvement), but that it didn't sort out the EC long term. Having said that, as I said before, the problem might have been permanent damage from the active infection, rather than an active infection itself (if that makes sense!) I didn't do the cleaning that I described above though - at the time I was using Virkon, and I didn't realise that it wasn't active against the spores. :(

From diagnosis, I can't really remember exactly how long they went on for, but they both progressively got worse, in that their guts began to rely increasingly on motility drugs (Metoclopramide, and also Metacam for the inflammation/pain relief, also Zantac). I think Clover carried on for a year and Dusty for a year and a half.

One thing I did find, which I wished I'd tried earlier with Clover than I did, was to cut out the dried food altogether. Dusty went on for another six months with a hay only diet, with different types of hay for variety, and a pinch of various dried herbs twice a day. Also, I used to feed peppermint tea twice a day (syringed - they hated it), which I really found helpful for them.

Give me a shout if you need any more help. Best of luck with the bunnies. x
 
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