To Treat or not to treat Wildies living with an active EC case . . .

We have a group comprising of three wildies and a domestic bunny (Pansy).

The wildies are:

Pippin who adores Pansy and fell in love with her when he was a baby and has always been with her. Pippin is part tame . . . (ish) but intensly dislikes being handled

Harebell: who came to us at 4 months old and is very nervy

Peasgood Nonsuch who came to us at about 9 months old and is more or less totally wild in behaviour and will not be caught or held without having MAJOR stress attacks.


Our problem is Pansy has been loosing her back legs for a while - we assumed it was arthritis as she is slightly elderly and was a bit wonky on her legs when she came to us

However a blood test has just shown this is active EC (the complicated new IGM/IGG test) and a very high titre.

In normal cases you would treat all buns in the group for 28 days, disinfact/bleach etc etc.

However although we can catch and treat Pansy, and treat (on food) Pippin, catching and treating the other two for 28 days would lead to heart attacks or at the very least incredible stress levels all round (I am not kidding - I know someone else whose wildie died recently from a heart attack after a scare at night). In the case of Peasgood he is simply uncatchable without three people to help. They do not reliably eat from one source and if 'yummy' bits are put on a plate Pippin will chase them off it and eat it - so we cannot put theirs on a food plate disguised.

SO . . . we can either split the foursome bond into two twosomes which will leave Pippin stuck with no other wildies and just an elderly bun who cant run around much (and tbh we simply have nowhere else big enough for wildies to run properly) . . and getting the group back together when Pansy does eventually pass away will be extremely tricky . . . The vet also thinks Pansy might be stressed by this and make her own EC worse . . .

OR remove Pansy - but she will then have to live alone and Pippin will also be devastated and I suspect will fight Peasgood Nonsuch for control of Harebell . .

OR we can keep the group together and just treat Pansy and Pippin and risk the re-infection circle in the hope that even if they are infected the wildies are so healthy they will be fine.

OR we can go ahead with 28 days for all and risk heart attacks and stress related injuries and disease (I suspect any EC would leap out and become active at that stage due to stress).


A present we are very much veering toward option 3 (just treat Pansy and Pippin and keep the group together) . . . . but understand that this puts the wildies at risk of EC . .

However another factor is that it is almost certain that our entire current colony of 36 rabbits does carry/has had EC - and we have only one currently showing any signs at all - rest healthy as anything . . . (we have had two headtilts over the years, one came to us like it, another developed after another illness and another def EC related death in older age . . bear in mind that three cases from about 55 rabbits in all). . . .
So it is quite possible that the wildies will not show /develop any EC unless they become in any other way stressed or ill.

In fact my immediate query to the vet when I heard of Pansy's results was 'what else is wrong which would have made the EC flare up'? (but we were too busy discussing how to treat the group to then go on to tackle that . . . )

What does anyone else think???? Especially those with larger groups and larger numbers of buns????

PS If you were at the RWA conference some of you may also have heard that EC treatment is now very much under discussion as to whther its useful or not anyway . . .

Mmmm - should I perhaps have put a poll???

or is it that viewers so far have no opinion?

It is a difficult question to answer. My advice would be to keep them together and treat Pansy and Pippin, the likelihood is that the others are carriers anyway. The stress of splitting them up could cause EC in the others.

If they are all bonded they will recover better in a group, from experience our bun was very unhappy when we were treating one and split them up, we subsequently put them back together and he showed no sign of EC. We now give them Panacur every four months or so and they eat it with their pellets, we just squirt it on top.

I think the risk of injuring Peasgood Nonsuch trying to catch him and the subsequent difficulty of giving meds is too great.

Keep them together, I think this is the answer you are leaning to in your post which is the right one IMOP.

From your reasoning and how well you know your buns I would treat the two you can easily and leave the other two alone. The other two will no doubt have their immune systems weakened through chasing and catching which is risky on a few fronts. Fingers crossed things clear up quickly.

aliduncan1 said:

From your reasoning and how well you know your buns I would treat the two you can easily and leave the other two alone. The other two will no doubt have their immune systems weakened through chasing and catching which is risky on a few fronts. Fingers crossed things clear up quickly.

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Exactly what I would do too. Treat who you can, but keep them all together. Separating them to could potentially cause as many problems as trying to treat them.

All you can do is the best you can and decide what is best for each bunny, and by keeping them together and treating the treatable two, you're doing just that. In my opinion. That's what I would do.

Agree with the others - option 3. I have some untreatables too and recognise (vet has agreed) that they may have to be pts at some point purely because they cannot stand the ordinary dosing/treatment another bun would take in their stride. However, up to that moment, they have exactly the life they love.....

Sky-O said:

Exactly what I would do too. Treat who you can, but keep them all together. Separating them to could potentially cause as many problems as trying to treat them.

All you can do is the best you can and decide what is best for each bunny, and by keeping them together and treating the treatable two, you're doing just that. In my opinion. That's what I would do.

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Absolutely this :wave:

Thank you everyone - I do greatly value the time you have taken to read this and ponder and give your thoughts and advice . .

It can be a heavy responsibiity having two rabbits who are literally uncatcheable unless you are prepared to totally stress them (obviously we catch them to take to vet for vaccines and would catch in a complete emergency or illness, and we managed to catch them for neutering . . . though steve had to stay with them all through the premed . . to try and calm them . . )

I hope we are making the right decision . .

I am actually suspecting that despite her rear end being fine on xray, and her bloods seeming fine apart from EC (and associated inflammation on going) there is something getting at Pansy's immune system to trigger the EC to flare . .

we will see what happens once she has had her course of panacur . .

Can you try making up some food mixes and see if you can sneak it in without manually feeding it. For example mixing a porridge/banana mash. I think it comes in different concentrations, so whether you could use a slightly more concentrated version ie smaller amount and mix that with something.

I would treat those 2 you can and not stress the other 2.
Personally I don't think I would try the panacur in the food trick for ANY bun, as unless you know the right bun ate all of his/her ration you risk underdosing. Underdosing is the main cause of anthelmintic resistance in livestock and I assume would be the same with any animal.
Also you do have the option later on of treating should one of the other 2 show symptoms so I would cross that bridge when you come to it

Tamsin said:

Can you try making up some food mixes and see if you can sneak it in without manually feeding it. For example mixing a porridge/banana mash. I think it comes in different concentrations, so whether you could use a slightly more concentrated version ie smaller amount and mix that with something.

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That what we will do for Pippin (and probably Pansy) but Pippin is top of the wildie heirachy and he will eat the other wildies saucers of food as well . . . they dont come out until a few minutes after we leave the aviary run - so he will eat his while we are there then eat theirs before they come out . . . (we thought of that one!!)