A senior rabbit friend is having watery eyes, and irritated red penis

I am posing this for 1 of my rabbit friend in facebook. He's 9 year old, and has the following symptoms:

1) watery eyes

2) irritated, red penis

3) lost 200 g of weight last Aug. in 10 days, gain back 60g , with current weight at 1.86 KG

Here's my questions:

do rabbit clean their own penis? And thus, not able to clean it well as they age?

if it's just watery eyes, is there anything you really need to do?

what could sudden weight loss be cause by?

besides the above, he's quite healthy

Sounds like your friend should take him to a good rabbit vet.
i take it hes neutered?
has he been humping a lot recently?

i looked after a bunny that was very randy and not neutered and he had quite sore bits after humping his toys constantly.

id check teeth at vet as they do keep their bits clean and teeth problems can cause runny eyes and they stop grooming themselves if its sore.
he could also have arthritis in his back causing him to not be able to groom.

a vet visit is really the only way to find out for sure.
hope he feels better soon xxxx

She already took her to the vet, that's why she has these assessment. I'll rely your memo to her

So, in normal circumstance, does a bun touch his own penis? Assuming the bun is already neutered

Happy Hopping said:

She already took her to the vet, that's why she has these assessment. I'll rely your memo to her

So, in normal circumstance, does a bun touch his own penis? Assuming the bun is already neutered

Click to expand...

yeah all mine are neutered and you sometimes see them grooming away and they spend just that little bit extra time grooming their bits. Same with the girls.

has he been given any painkillers?
if the vet noticed his penis was sore looking id be expecting some metacam, which would also help if bunny had arthritis, though to say for sure on the arthritis front bun would need an xray.

I don't know if he's given any metacam. I suppose a better question, if he were given metacam, how long would he needs it? Does the red penis eventually heal by itself or should she use ice on him? I personally would recommend twice a day, every 12 hr. on ice pack

I found this from my notes, and I just went back to his photos, he has runny eyes on both side, so it's highly unlikely that he so happen to have teeth growing upwards on both side of the jaw, and so happen to impact both teeth, anyhoo, here's my notes from ??:

runny eye: A condition in rabbits when one or both eyes tear continuously. The fur on the cheek below the runny eye often will be matted. Sometimes this is not a sign of illness; a rabbit's eyes might have been irritated by too strong a cleaning solvent in their cage, such as ammonia.

In some cases, this condition is due to a blocked tear duct, which can be caused by debris, injury, or heredity. In other cases, runny eye is a symptom of an allergy. Runny eye can also be a sign of a bacterial infection, such as Pasteurellosis. Also called conjunctivitis, epiphora, or weepy eye.

I wouldn't put ice anywhere near a buns penis unless they had a priapism (sp)?
that's where it swells up whilst erect and then like gets stuck out and cant go back down :lol:

im not a vet so cant say how long it would have to be given for but if bun has arthritis say then it would probs be every day till he passed, so as to keep him comfy.
cousins bunny has overgrown tooth roots which cause pain and gets frequent spurs and dentals to sort them.
if he doesn't have metacam daily he is in too much pain to eat.

i know having metacam long term can cause problems in itself but quality of life is so important.

Re red penis, it really all depends on what caused the red penis, like if its due to exessive humping then it probs wouldn't go away till he had stopped humping for a while.
if caused by bun not being able to groom and clean down there due to arthritis then would not go away till bun was able to groom. And pain killers would be essential to keep him mobile enough to groom.

maybe your friend should get a second opinion from a vet recommended for bunnies.
unless they are totally confident in there vet xxxx

I agree. I don't like that idea of long term metacam neither

Bunnies have a hard time regulating their temp, especially if poorly so don't put him on ice..

Looking at the above symptoms, including the unexplained weight loss, what does you people gut tell you about this bun?

Do you think his symptoms are life threatening, i.e., that he'll pass away in a few months?

As I think her vet doesn't know what she's doing OR she's 1 of those vet (just like mine) that covers all the basis and said things like he doesn't have a lot of time left.

Because I don't see anything from the above symptoms that will cause this bun to pass away in the next few mth., things like arthritis, rainy eyes, should derail his life span, and I think he should live for a few more years. what do you people think?

Get your friend to take him to a good rabbit vet, start a thread in rabbit chat asking for a vet in your friends area. :wave:

once he sees a rabbit savvy vet then they can provide a treatment plan and diagnostics.
i feel untreated/treated by a vet reluctant or not knowledgable enough on rabbits then it could hinder him.
getting the right treatment he needs would prolong his life and make sure he wasn't in pain certainly.

some rabbits can live upto 13 yrs, so the least that can be done is make sure he lovely and confortable in his twilight years

there are many buns that have arthritis and it is manageable as well as metacam for pain things like acupuncture are helpful.
let us know how he gets on :wave:

okay, I have an update. He's about to be 8 yr. old by April of this year. The vet that he's seeing is a rabbit expert, she only see rabbits, so she better know what she's doing.

My rabbit friend has rainy eyes on both eyes, the vet wants to flush the nasolacrimal duct, but it's quite rare that both ducts are blocked by ??. I tend to think that it's some sort of allergy or sickness. Now it's possible that his surrounding is packed w/ wood chip for urine purpose, that could explain the possibility that both duct are blocked, but other than that, I don't see how

What's the worse case scenario on rainy eyes? Does the eyes need to be removed? I'll dig out my reference book tonight and read up on it.

The red penis situation is easy to fix.

If hes on saw dust then changing to a bed of newspaper and hay might help.
that could certainly be irritating his eyes.
it could also be teeth so the vet should have had a wee look at the molars to see if there is any visible teeth problems.
but an xray would need to be done to see how badly if at all the roots are overgrown.

that's 1 of the possible cause of what those rabbit medicine books says.

But what's the chance of both teeth root growing towards both eyes at the same time? Wouldn't it be more likely that some other factor causing rainy eyes? As I just check his cage, there is no wood shaving / powder. There is hay, I suppose it could be hay powder, but hay powder blocking both tear ducts at the same time, is that likely?

Any lesions at all in either area? Apart from the issues already covered by other posts the only thing I can think of that would affect both areas is syphilis.

http://www.medirabbit.com/EN/Skin_diseases/Bacterial/Syphilis.htm

no lesions that I can see from photos. At this point, I'm leaning on Dacryocystitis, the chance of this is a lot higher than teeth root upwards extrusion

Now, from BSAVA manual of Rabbit Medicine & Surgery, there has this neat trick, and I don't know if you guys have heard of this, it says:

"Apart from Nasolacrimal cannulation and irrigation as confirmatory diagnostic techniques, bacteriology with culture and sensitivity and dacryocystorrhinography are valuable diagnostic tools in the work-up of a case of dacryocystitis. Dacryocystorhinography is performed by cannulating the nasolacrimal duct, injecting 0.2 ml of non-ionic contrast medium through the nasolacrimal cannula and taking lateral and dorsoventral radiographs. It will delineate where structural abnormalities of the nasolacrimal duct exist or where abnormal relationships with surrounding structures result in occlusion, demonstrating the relationship between duct and dental pathology"

Has any1 seen this done? As it saves a x-ray, and you don't have to put your bun under and it can tells the result whether it's the teeth or not. That sounds too good to be true? Although I have heard instead of putting a bun under, a vet can temporary put a bun in a somewhat sleepy state, I forgot what that trick is, and not using a GA

They can sedate then slightly where it doesn't last as long as a ga, and less risk, dunno what they use.

that's still an xray that's going to be done, just with the cannula in the tear ducts, in assuming this would show if there was any narrowing of the ducts.

tell your friend to clean his eyes with cooled boiled water, and then dry them after, just to male sure that his fur doesn't get matted.

A ga is normally needed to get skull xrays as the rabbit needs to be turned upside down on the table to get a good view. We have had most other xray views done consciously but never a skull xray.

At least if rabbit is under a tear duct flush and any dental work can be done at the same time.

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