Hugo's There
Wise Old Thumper
As the majority of you know Otis is our Giant disabled boy who can't walk or empty his own bladder. Despite this he is the most amazing, happy and loving rabbit and has become my whole world. I spend nearly every waking moment checking on him and caring for him, yet ten days ago despite all my best efforts he got flystrike 
Otis hadn't been right for a few days, not sure why. He wasn;t weeing well and when he did it was very concentrated and smelt bad. Not the same smell as when he has an infection, but not right at all. The night before I had been unable to urinate him at all, so I knew by morning his bladder would have over flowed and it had. This very rarely happens but he had a really good bum bath and blow dry. We used F10 spray on him on warm days but this day wasn't warm or sunny so we didn't put it on.
Obviously he is a house rabbit but he does enjoy time outside. I took him out around midday while I cleaned some litter trays out there, but there were spots of rain coming down so he had a towel over him. Just 50 minutes later it was raining proper so we took him inside. He has fly netting on his window and the door stays shut. Between 3-3.30 pm I toileted him again and as I normally do gave his inside legs a good wipe with a wet flannel. Otis's hips are locked and there are parts of him I can;t see without a torch but I always run my finger along the crevices and makes sure they are cleaned every time he is toiletted.
At 4pm he was given his tea and all was fine. It was raining hard, in fact we had winter coats and boots on it was so cold. At 7pm I took up his meds and he was really bright and normal, ( I had checked on him visually in between 4 and 7) so left him to eat his meds mixed with fruit.
At 7.30pm I brought him down to the bath room to urinate him and he smelt really bad. Really awful I thought I would have to bath him again but as soon as I aimed the shower head at him maggots started falling off Trying not to panic I pulled off more and more. Our own vet had just shut so knew we would need the emergency vet, who didn't know otis at all plus a longer journey. So I made the decision to continue doing what I could myself until I was happy he could travel to the vets. With Steve aiming a torch between Otis's legs I removed 20-30 maggots. I then took him upstairs to dry him off a bit and removed another 3. I inspected the damage really carefully as I suspected the vet would want to pts and wanted to know before hand if I felt this was the right decision. I could find no holes or real damage so knew we had a chance.
At the emergency vet as predicted they wanted to pts We thought the flystrike was worse than we feared but it turned out they wanted to pts because of his disability so we fought to get them to treat him. As they started bathing him Otis started washing them and their whole attitude changed. They started fighting to save him as much as us. We were at the vets hours while they repeatedly bathed him. Finally we were able to come home and although understandably being exhausted Otis was fine. He never stopped eating! Within 36 hours all sores on his skin were healed and gone.
We know we were incredibly lucky. But I posted this to warn people that flystrike can still happen on cold wet days. If ever there was a day you would think a rabbit couldn;t get flystrike that day was it. He was bathed, clean and dry, it was cold and pouring with rain and yet it still happened
After this of course we started using the F10 spray every day. But within 3 days Otis's skin was cracked and bleeding round his tail and his genitals had blisters It seems he is sensitive/allergic to the spray. Given how bad his skin became we will never ever use it on a rabbit again. It did far more damage on than the flystrike I know other rabbits have used it with no issues but I wanted to make people aware that it can do this, so please use with care.
Otis's skin is nearly healed now and we have bought a natural fly repellent spray. Not sure how well it will work but I don't know what else we can do?
Otis hadn't been right for a few days, not sure why. He wasn;t weeing well and when he did it was very concentrated and smelt bad. Not the same smell as when he has an infection, but not right at all. The night before I had been unable to urinate him at all, so I knew by morning his bladder would have over flowed and it had. This very rarely happens but he had a really good bum bath and blow dry. We used F10 spray on him on warm days but this day wasn't warm or sunny so we didn't put it on.
Obviously he is a house rabbit but he does enjoy time outside. I took him out around midday while I cleaned some litter trays out there, but there were spots of rain coming down so he had a towel over him. Just 50 minutes later it was raining proper so we took him inside. He has fly netting on his window and the door stays shut. Between 3-3.30 pm I toileted him again and as I normally do gave his inside legs a good wipe with a wet flannel. Otis's hips are locked and there are parts of him I can;t see without a torch but I always run my finger along the crevices and makes sure they are cleaned every time he is toiletted.
At 4pm he was given his tea and all was fine. It was raining hard, in fact we had winter coats and boots on it was so cold. At 7pm I took up his meds and he was really bright and normal, ( I had checked on him visually in between 4 and 7) so left him to eat his meds mixed with fruit.
At 7.30pm I brought him down to the bath room to urinate him and he smelt really bad. Really awful
I thought I would have to bath him again but as soon as I aimed the shower head at him maggots started falling off Trying not to panic I pulled off more and more. Our own vet had just shut so knew we would need the emergency vet, who didn't know otis at all plus a longer journey. So I made the decision to continue doing what I could myself until I was happy he could travel to the vets. With Steve aiming a torch between Otis's legs I removed 20-30 maggots. I then took him upstairs to dry him off a bit and removed another 3. I inspected the damage really carefully as I suspected the vet would want to pts and wanted to know before hand if I felt this was the right decision. I could find no holes or real damage so knew we had a chance. At the emergency vet as predicted they wanted to pts
We thought the flystrike was worse than we feared but it turned out they wanted to pts because of his disability so we fought to get them to treat him. As they started bathing him Otis started washing them and their whole attitude changed. They started fighting to save him as much as us. We were at the vets hours while they repeatedly bathed him. Finally we were able to come home and although understandably being exhausted Otis was fine. He never stopped eating! Within 36 hours all sores on his skin were healed and gone.We know we were incredibly lucky. But I posted this to warn people that flystrike can still happen on cold wet days. If ever there was a day you would think a rabbit couldn;t get flystrike that day was it. He was bathed, clean and dry, it was cold and pouring with rain and yet it still happened
After this of course we started using the F10 spray every day. But within 3 days Otis's skin was cracked and bleeding round his tail and his genitals had blisters
It seems he is sensitive/allergic to the spray. Given how bad his skin became we will never ever use it on a rabbit again. It did far more damage on than the flystrike I know other rabbits have used it with no issues but I wanted to make people aware that it can do this, so please use with care.Otis's skin is nearly healed now and we have bought a natural fly repellent spray. Not sure how well it will work but I don't know what else we can do?
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