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EC - spreading to other rabbits? And just in the middle of a delicate bond! Help!

Alice's mum

Alice's mum

Warren Scout
Help again please...
I'm in the process of bonding a trio of rabbits and today is day 4....I've just seen grooming of the single rabbit by one of my pair so I'm really pleased as the single rabbit is blind. I was told by a vet that her blindness was old age. I have now been told today that it could be due to EC. I am awaiting test results for this. I explained that she has had 28 days of panacur and the other 2 rabbits have had 9 days of panacur and the vet (who is an exotics expert) told me panacur was a load of rubbish and that it was only ever trialled once on 30 rabbits and there was now evidence to say it doesn't work.
She then advised me that I should split up the bond until I get the EC test results incase my single bun infects the others, but this would cause stress to her because she is blind and is only just making friends with them and she is 9 years old.
So my question is...have other RU members had one rabbit infected with EC but kept them with healthy rabbits and not seperated them? And would you break up this new group?
Thank you in advance.
 
I believe many rabbits have the EC parasite but never get ill with it like they carry pasteurella.
 
That's what I have been reading as well. Just hoping someone on here may have been through this with one EC bunny and other apparently healthy ones and whether they split them. The possible EC bunny apart from being blind is eating, pooing and everything else normally.
 
i recently added a 4th to my 3, he was a foster i wanted to keep and he had a pigment in his eye which was possible EC.
they say 50% of domestic buns carry EC and most of the time it never surfaces or causes problems. i gave him a 28 day course of wormer prior to bonding then wormed them all after for 9 days as a precaution.
i was told as long as i kept the litter trays clean (EC is carried through urine spores) and kept Gus wormed regularly it shouldn't be a problem.

i was worried sick and was worrying like you about seperating and hated the thought of him being alone but was reasured through the wonderful people of RU that it wasn't neccessary or as bad as i was thinking.
 
Well as its day four I imagine theyre already infected by now. But as people have said, a lot of rabbits carry EC with no problems, the problems start when it starts multiplying out of control or the rabbit is immuno-suppressed.
 
Hello :wave:

My bun Gypsy has EC. She had head tilt and was rolling around. I never seperated her from her partner, Storm, I just treated him with a 28 day course of Panacur While Gypsy had her panacur and meds.

This all happened a year ago now, and Storm shows no signs of active EC. Gypsy is also doing well :D
 
Hi,

I have just responded to another thread about separation in EC cases and in my honest opinion I don't think it should be done. As other posters have mentioned there is high chance that the other bun will be carrying EC anyway. The way I see it is if you were in hospital you would like people to visit, much like a bun loves to have his/her companion around.

We had one bun with EC and one without. They were separated for a while but the bun without EC got very sad and depressed, he would not leave his room and was eating very little so we put them back together. In this instance he did not even have Panacur.

Going forward now we give both the 9 day course every 4 months or so.
 
Thank you everyone.
At this point in time I've made the decision to keep the 3 together. Although they are just all being bonded they have shared the same grass (out alternately) for 2 years and as EC spores are shed in urine I guess the chances of the other two having EC is fairly high.
I am interested in what the vet said about Panacur not being effective and that this (I think) was a topic at the RWA conference (which I couldn't attend this year) I'll have to buy a copy of the lecture notes!
Thanks again :wave:
 
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