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Bunny love

Hi, I am new to all this forum stuff, so bare with me if I waffle on.
I have two lovely rescue rabbits one a neutered male called Mr Pudding who is around 6 years and huge and another female dwarf called Crumble who is around 2 years. The problem I have is that Crumble although she has now been spayed is still producing loads of milk for what she thinks will be her little bunnies. I have taken her to the vets and although she has not had mastitis they are really full and look painful, the vets just said in time she will not produce the milk as she has no female bits left and that it will be her brain telling her she must produce milk (really odd but that was his opinion). After much frolicking with Mr Pudding she is full again and I am thinking it is another trip to the vets, but she hates going and I feel awful keep taking her - has anyone come across this before and if so did you get it sorted and how.
 
Hi, and welcome to the forum :wave: love the names of your rabbits :thumb: I haven't come across this, hopefully someone who has will have some idea. When was she spayed?
 
Bunny Love

Hi, and welcome to the forum :wave: love the names of your rabbits :thumb: I haven't come across this, hopefully someone who has will have some idea. When was she spayed?

Hi, thanks for your response. Crumble was spayed in October as she was producing milk all the time and although Mr Pudding has been done when very young (before I adopted him) they were ' at it like rabbits' as soon as she was introduced to him but I never thought much about it because he was firing blanks so I thought no harm done - how wrong could I be - she is more or less constantly full of milk. The vet advised having her spayed which I did and although she is only a dwarf rabbit apparently her lady bits were the size of a dogs, which my vet found astounding and actually sent pictures of it to a lot of her colleagues and saved it for me to look at. We thought once she was done she would be fine but that is clearly not the case. I took her to the vets in January and she said she thought as time went on it would diminish but it hasn't, it is apparently being produced because her brain in still telling her that she will be having little bunnies so get ready for them.

My bunnies live in the garden during the day and only come inside if its bad weather and at night, so they have a lot of freedom to run and jump and binky around which is lovely to see and she doesn't seem bothered or poorly with it but it can't be very pleasant - I remember it well when having my girls - it hurts!!!

I will keep you posted as to what I end up doing about it.

:wave:
 
I've only just seen this.

Do you know if she had a full spay (removed the tubes, womb & ovaries) or did she just have the ovaries removed?

If she just had the ovaries removed its possible there is some still left in there, even the smallest amount is enough to produce the hormones required to cause a phantom pregnancy.

Also, is your male castrated, or vasectomied? If he's vasectomised he's still going to have the ambition etc to mate. Everything still works he just can't actually make her pregnant. Its worth having him fully castrated if he isn't as this will reduce, if not stop him mating.

Your vets may want to look into hormone treatment, to reduce the amount of milk being produced.
They may also want to screen for cancer in case there is a tumour giving off hormones which are causing her body to produce milk. (I've never seen this in a rabbit, and its unlikely but worth mentioning)

Wishing you luck x
 
Hi there,

thanks for your reply, much appreciated. Yes both my bunnies have been fully done which is why my vet is so surprised at Crumble producing milk. She was going to put her on some form of hormone treatment but because she was a rescue rabbit she came to me with a few problems already and we felt she has been through enough so I was looking to see if anyone knew of any homeopathic treatments for this problem - I have spoken to someone but they only deal with cats and dogs hence me joining the Rabbit organisation that mainly deals with rabbits. I am not a great believer in filling either myself or my pets with chemicals - it goes against my gut feelings about what you put into your body.
In the meantime Crumble is again quite empty at the moment but they have not done 'playtime' for a few weeks but now the weather is a bit warmer I keep watching for it again. They are both so much in love I think she probably will always produce milk in some degree but hope in time it diminishes - I keep offering her the sage leaves as these are good for that apparently but she is not that interested.

All I know is that she is living a lovely life compared to with her previous owners and she looks really happy with Mr Pudding she never stops kissing him - ah bless them!!

Thanks again for replying x
 
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