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Lapizole and bonding question

beki

Mama Doe
I wasn't sure whether this should go in bonding or in health.

Bertie had ec earlier in the year, it affects his eyes, he had a 28 day course of lapizole at the time. We lost Ruby in August and in October I got betsy, a baby bunny, to bond with Bertie.on the advice of my vet, both are on a 28 day course of lapizole which is due to finish on the 4th December. I was going to wait until after then to bond them but with this cold weather and betsy being so tiny, is it safe to bond before the course is finished? I bond slowly, so the bunnies will be having dates in the run until I can put them in the hutch together overnight.

I'm worri d about betsy being cold. She is fluffy so I think her winter coat has grown, she has a lot of hay in her hutch (though the hutch isn't very good - thin wood - and she has a cardboard box with hay for a bed as the partition broke). She also has a snuggle safe at nights and hutch is covered in tarpaulin.

Bertie has a nice thick welfare hutch and he has a thick coat so I'm not too concerned about him in the cold weather
 
If your baby bunny was born outdoors she should be ok and I don't see any reason why you shouldn't start bonding now, but maybe someone else will think otherwise. Good luck with the bond and I can picture Bertie in his lovely Welfare hutch :lol:
 
She was born in a shed but it didn't have a door. She was born in August and has been outside since I got her on the 21st October so has got used to the weather I think but this cold weather seems to have come on quite fast!

I can't wait to get them both in that lovely big hutch, it's a 6x2 double and the size is wasted on him really, all he does is sit in his hay try for hours on end sulking and staring at the walls and not moving! Grumpy boy.
 
I would bond them now. Little Noodle (RIP) had EC & when we adopted Mouse, we knew she had EC. Noodle was under Frances Harcourt Brown & Mouse saw her for a check up this year. She gave the same advice for both bunnies - to give them the shorter course of panacur prior to any really stressful event, so when I bonded my trio they all started on panacur the day before. As always not everyone will agree with this strategy but there have been no "relapses" & I'm happy with managing things this way.

In my experience stress is a major contributor to 'activating' ec. Noodle had her episode (really severe head tilt) within 24 hours of losing her bonded sister & Mouse got head tilt (& a subsequent EC diagnosis) when she was moved to rescue a second time.

Good luck x
 
Thanks joey & boo. I believe stress started Bertie's ec. He was an RSPCA bunny found as a stray. When I got him, he had been in the shelter for about 2 months and then just gone through a neuter. I then kept him separate from Ruby for. Few weeks as his neuter scar had been infected and he was recovering. I believe the bond caused the ec flair up as the ec caused a cateract and bleeding in his eye which didn't show itself until after the bonding and the bunnies were living together, which is why I am being extra caution this time. I'm hoping the ec has been cleared from the treatment back in April, he has not had any bleeding in his eye since the course of treatment ended. I think what I will do is start the slow bond over the next few days. I'm due to bleach the hutch next weekend at day 21 so I won't attempt to move betsy into Bertie's hutch until then but I can start off with the bunny dating so that they can hopefully be ready to move in with each other soon.
 
You're welcome. Using short courses of panacur I managed to bond Noodle to Joey without incident or relapse. Perhaps more surprisingly Mouse, who arrived here with a tilt has shown no signs or relapse & has actually straightened right up & that was a long roller coaster trio bond
 
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