Prolonged clotting and spay surgery

Hi everyone,

I recently adopted a 3-month old rex bunny. I took her to the vet this week and had a pre-spay blood work done. I learned today that her liver enzymes were slightly elevated and that she had prolonged clotting.

Her vet said that the elevated liver enzymes may be due to her still growing (we use Yesterday's News for her litter), and the prolonged clotting may be a result of her squirming when they took the blood sample. Our current plan is to re-do the blood test in a month time to confirm this.

Has anyone else in the forum run across this? My questions are,

1) Why would her squirming give that kind of result?

2) If the blood clotting is an issue, is it likely genetic? and,

3) Because the risk of cancer is high in females, are there any alternative treatments that can be done if spay surgery is not an option?


Thanks,
Seraphydragon

I am not Veterinary qualified, but this is my understanding of the situation.

When a Rabbit 'squirms' when having bloods taken it can reseult in the red blood cells in the sample being destroyed. Thus certain lab results obtained from the sample would be artifactually effected and misleading, including clotting times So that would be why the Vet recommends a retest. If albumin levels are low (hypoalbuminemia), that can be an indication of infection with hepatic coccidiosis in young Rabbits, other liver enzymes (bilirubin, AP,ALT, AST) are also likely to be elevated.

Genetic blood disorders can occur in any species, I have no experience of such a phenomenon in Rex Rabbits. I have seen Heart Disease and Ulcerative Pododermatitis as hereditary conditions in some breed lines of Rexes though.

Spaying is the only sure way to protect a Doe against Uterine Cancer. There is research being done into non-surgical neutering of cats and dogs, mainly for use in feral dog/cat situations in deprived Countries. But to my knowledge nothing relating to Rabbits.

An example here:

http://www.hsvma.org/nonsurgical_sterilization_methods

Personally I would not worry too much at this stage, the next blood profile may show everything to be normal.

Seraphydragon said:

Hi everyone,

I recently adopted a 3-month old rex bunny. I took her to the vet this week and had a pre-spay blood work done. I learned today that her liver enzymes were slightly elevated and that she had prolonged clotting.

Her vet said that the elevated liver enzymes may be due to her still growing (we use Yesterday's News for her litter), and the prolonged clotting may be a result of her squirming when they took the blood sample. Our current plan is to re-do the blood test in a month time to confirm this.

Has anyone else in the forum run across this? My questions are,

1) Why would her squirming give that kind of result?

2) If the blood clotting is an issue, is it likely genetic? and,

3) Because the risk of cancer is high in females, are there any alternative treatments that can be done if spay surgery is not an option?


Thanks,
Seraphydragon

Click to expand...

Getting blood from a rabbit can be a protracted and difficult task, whether the rabbit squirms or not. Because of the length of time to get the blood, often a portion of the result is rendered null and void. I have had this happen with my rabbits.

It's good that you are doing pre-spay blood work. I am sure that in a couple of months time, when she is ready to spay, things may look different and the vet will be happy with the results.

There is no non-surgical alternative to spaying, and because of the serious and high risk of uterine cancer, it can only be recommended.

http://www.rabbitwelfare.co.uk/pdfs/neutering28807.pdf

Your vets has given you the correct confusion & its nice that you're doing pre-op bloods.

Normally they'll do bloods about a week before the surgery is due to be carried out. Are you intending to have her spayed this early, or will she be done more about 5/6 months?
If so I'd hold of getting them done until closer to the surgery date. (Unless of course you are getting them done because of health concerns)

Okay, thank you everyone . I'm not too familiar with how these blood tests go, so your responses really helped. We'll re-do the blood test later and see how it goes.

@daphnephoebe - yes, we're planning to have her spayed closer to 6 months. Since I took her in for a general wellness exam, the vet said they could take a blood sample at the same time. I got the impression that the blood test would not have to be redone before surgery if the results were okay.

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to update the forum here on my bun. We re-did her blood test yesterday, and the results came back good this time! We'll be going ahead with spay surgery later next month.

Seraphydragon said:

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to update the forum here on my bun. We re-did her blood test yesterday, and the results came back good this time! We'll be going ahead with spay surgery later next month.

Click to expand...

Good news All the best for her spay xx

Seraphydragon said:

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to update the forum here on my bun. We re-did her blood test yesterday, and the results came back good this time! We'll be going ahead with spay surgery later next month.

Click to expand...

That's really great news

Good luck for her spay xx