Panacur as a preventative measure

Hi all,

I apologise in advance to all the experienced RUers who have probably seen this question many times, but I am a tad confused and looking for advice.

My vet has started this thing where for £5 a month your bun gets 'free' yearly vacs, panacur as a preventative measure every 6 months, free 6 monthly check ups and 10% off consultations and dental work. I am considering signing up for it but have worked out that it's only really worth it financially if the panacur thing is a good idea. My vet said that they recommend a 9 day course every 6 months (and I'd get this free on this new plan). However, I know I've read on here before that if used regularly the effectiveness of panacur may be reduced. So please could I have your opinions on this? I know that vets are ultimately a money-making business and I don't want to sign up for this of it's not necessary. Is the general consensus that regular worming is a good thing for rabbits, or not?

Thanks in advance

I've always been told they should have Panacur every 6 months. Was told this by my breeder also to stop parasites. Not sure if anyone else has heard any different?

I've been told my rabbit has to go on a 28 day course to hopefully help with his urine problem which sounds odd to me!


~ Emmzie x

I asked my vet about worming them as a preventative and she only advised worming if it was needed. I will be interested to see what others do

Panacur has no preventative properties. It only treats a problem there and then. Using it as a preventative would be like us taking paracetamol in case we got a headache the following month!

Can panacur go off? If its fully packaged you could keep to one side.

My consultations are 20 and the vacs are 35, so on that basis I'd do it if my vet were offering. 10% off dental work would probably be useful for a few people on here too.

This is really helpful for me also as I've always been told to do it twice a year! Now I know!


~ Emmzie x

I don't recommend using medication unless it is needed and certainly my rabbit-savvy vet has never recommended doing so.

Babsie said:

I don't recommend using medication unless it is needed and certainly my rabbit-savvy vet has never recommended doing so.

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This, I asked my vet about it and she agreed.

Ahh so confused!!

This actually is a good point though raven moon, just because I get given it by the vet doesn't mean I have to give it to th buns. It does feel like a fairly good deal to me but I'm not sure. Marbles isn't a dental bun as such but she did have to have some work done last year and today he said she's starting to get a few sharp bits again so I do wonder if the dental discount might become worthwhile for her soon.

Though as old martin lewis always says I'm thinking of it as £60/yr rather than £5/mt and as the vacs are £30 I'm wondering if it's really worth it. At 10% I'd have to have £300 of consultations or dental work every year per bun for it to be worth the extra £30. Hmm not sure I'll have a think, but the panacur thing is interesting.

RavenMoon said:

Can panacur go off? If its fully packaged you could keep to one side.

My consultations are 20 and the vacs are 35, so on that basis I'd do it if my vet were offering. 10% off dental work would probably be useful for a few people on here too.

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As Babsie and Hugo's said, Panacur is to treat a problem, not a preventative.

I've seen three different vets at my practice with Ludo for general check ups, all of whom I trust with bunnies, and not one of them has recommended Panacur to be used every 6 months!

I wouldn't want to do it anyway, the stress on the bunny, using chemicals unnecessarily and the fact that you may weaken the effectiveness of it when you really need it are all big downpoints.

None of the vets I've ever seen have recommended regular worming for rabbits, only for when it is a problem.

My vet who is mainly just a bunny vet, as runs a cat and rabbit clinic only, has said it is a complete waste of time. Dogs, cats and horses need regular worming because they do tend to carry various types of worms that can become very harmful to them if left uncontrolled, but apparently that is not the case for rabbits, and it is pretty unusual for a rabbit to have worms. Your bun is far more likely to develop E.Cuniculi, and it is worth bearing in mind that the only treatment available for this awful disease is Panacur, and therefore if you regularly worm rabbits and they then develop EC, they may well also develope a resistance to the Panacur, which I think would leave you with the only other option of pts, and I would imagine that being a pretty hard pill to swallow so to speak, if you found yourself in that situation because of needlessly regularly worming your bun.

With regards to your vets veterinary care plan, I think you may need to have a think about whether these vets are going to be knowledgeable enough vets should your bunny become poorly. I think it is fair to say that truly rabbit savvy vets, would not be recommending regular worming, and often in such practices bunny medications are very limited. I know of a vets near where I live, and the only antibiotic they carry for rabbits is Baytril, when in reality Baytril is actually very rarely an effective enough antibiotic, especially when abscesses have developed, or severe respiratory infections etc. Therefore you could potentially end up wasting lots of money on inappropriate medications for rabbits, (as my vet refers to them), and then having to be referred on to a more knowledgeable vet anyway and having to start treatment all over again. This being if you are actually lucky enough to still have a live bunny to go down this route. Sadly when I first started out keeping rabbits, I didn't know about all this, and lost my beloved beautiful mini rex Cassie, because she just failed to improve on the limited medications and knowledge the practice had, and died at home during the night, even though she had been seen that day by the Senior Vet who was very happy with her.

I personally think your best option would be to insure your bunny. All 5 of my buns are insured with Petplan and dental work has been covered and paid for as long as the bun in question, has had a dental check up in the previous 12 months. Neutering is a one off expense and annual vaccinations now with the new combined vaccine are brilliant news, as not only is it a far superior vaccination, it only needs administering once a year, whereby previously I had to have 5 bunnies each vaccinated 3 times a year at a total cost of £120 each, so £600 per year for all of them, and now it is only £200 per year for all of them.

RogerRabbit999 said:

Dogs, cats and horses need regular worming because they do tend to carry various types of worms that can become very harmful to them if left uncontrolled, but apparently that is not the case for rabbits, and it is pretty unusual for a rabbit to have worms.

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I disagree with the implication there that worms are not harmful. We just lost one and nearly lost another to worms - it's a killer if you don't notice it and rabbits are *very* good at hiding illness.

TonyHoyle said:

I disagree with the implication there that worms are not harmful. We just lost one and nearly lost another to worms - it's a killer if you don't notice it and rabbits are *very* good at hiding illness.

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I'm sorry you lost one of your rabbits.

I don't think it has been implied that worms are not harmful, more that it is unusual and there is no point in giving panacur as a preventive.

I've never heard of a bun dying from worms, only E.C. :? My friend's rabbits had worms, but it didn't affect their health at all, she just noticed white things in their poo.
Sorry to hear you lost your bun.


As for the 5/month vet thing, a vets near to me offers this, but tbh, it's not worth it. Even if you had a bun which needed regular work on their teeth, it would probably not be worth it. My dog was on this thing called "Healthy Pet Club", which was basically the same thing. It was worth it because he had a lot of problems and was on a lot of rather expensive medication. He got his vaccs for "free" and consultations, as well as 10% off his meds. It wouldn't be worth it fr an animal with no/few health problems.

Thanks for renewing this old post as I realised I never saw everybody's replies. I decided not to go for it in the end - veganbunny I agree, I don't think it would be financially worthwhile even if the regular worming was a good idea.

RogerRabbit999 said:

My vet who is mainly just a bunny vet, as runs a cat and rabbit clinic only, has said it is a complete waste of time. Dogs, cats and horses need regular worming because they do tend to carry various types of worms that can become very harmful to them if left uncontrolled, but apparently that is not the case for rabbits, and it is pretty unusual for a rabbit to have worms. Your bun is far more likely to develop E.Cuniculi, and it is worth bearing in mind that the only treatment available for this awful disease is Panacur, and therefore if you regularly worm rabbits and they then develop EC, they may well also develope a resistance to the Panacur, which I think would leave you with the only other option of pts, and I would imagine that being a pretty hard pill to swallow so to speak, if you found yourself in that situation because of needlessly regularly worming your bun.

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I find the advise of worming rabbits 6monthly using exactly the same wormer each time absolutely bizzare. In horses, which unlike rabbits are highly likely to get worms, you would never, ever worm regularly with the same wormer. It causes worm resistance (i.e. You end up with worms that cant be killed by most wormers). in horses wormers are traditionally used in rotation around various drug types, in an attempt to stop this resistance. However due to misuse of wormers (people not correctly rotating wormers, and people under and over dosing wormers), equine wormers are now becoming ineffective. This has lead to almost all equine vets advising worming only once a year and then doing egg counts on samples of the horses poo once or twice a year (vets and some other organisations do this for you), then you worm only if the horse has worms. This is considered the most effective stance.

So based on those principles would say worming frequently, especially with the same wormer, is bad. I would worm only IF my rabbit actually had worms.

Also to die from worms, i believe a grazing animal has to be absolutely infested, to the point that intestines get clogged or infested long enough for the animal to "waste away". You would notice adult worms in poo long before this point.

I think we are all agreed that routine worming is not necessary.