Mmmmm....thought that title might grab your attention, well I hope it has because it was what my little Merlin was diagnosed as suffering from on Monday!
He was right as rain Sunday night when I went to bed, then on Monday morning he was very quiet and sitting in an odd place in his cage: I gave him some Infacol and some tummy rubs, vowing that were he not better by lunch time I would whip him off to the vet. Well, he was not better and his tummy seemed more bloated so I got an urgent appointment: well, thank God I did as he was admitted immediately, put on a drip because he was dehydrated and given antibiotics. My vet had examined him very carefully, said that his intestines were very gassy, took his temperature and found it to be extremely low and there was blood on the thermometer when he removed it. So he made an educated assessment that it was "clostridial enterotoxaemia": as he said, if you wait to do the test to confirm and find it positive, the rabbit would be dead before you started treatment.
This is a very, very nasty illness and I don't want to be alarmist at all because it probably doesn't happen very often but, apart from the fact that Jason said the first 24 hours would be crucial, had I not been so "neurotic" and taken him in so quickly he would probably have stood very little chance of surviving. As it is he is now as right as ninepence, on prepulsid, anti- and probiotics, no fruit or veg, very little mix and masses of hay! He is certainly back to his usual cheeky self and giving me evil looks for the lack of variety in his diet!
He was right as rain Sunday night when I went to bed, then on Monday morning he was very quiet and sitting in an odd place in his cage: I gave him some Infacol and some tummy rubs, vowing that were he not better by lunch time I would whip him off to the vet. Well, he was not better and his tummy seemed more bloated so I got an urgent appointment: well, thank God I did as he was admitted immediately, put on a drip because he was dehydrated and given antibiotics. My vet had examined him very carefully, said that his intestines were very gassy, took his temperature and found it to be extremely low and there was blood on the thermometer when he removed it. So he made an educated assessment that it was "clostridial enterotoxaemia": as he said, if you wait to do the test to confirm and find it positive, the rabbit would be dead before you started treatment.
This is a very, very nasty illness and I don't want to be alarmist at all because it probably doesn't happen very often but, apart from the fact that Jason said the first 24 hours would be crucial, had I not been so "neurotic" and taken him in so quickly he would probably have stood very little chance of surviving. As it is he is now as right as ninepence, on prepulsid, anti- and probiotics, no fruit or veg, very little mix and masses of hay! He is certainly back to his usual cheeky self and giving me evil looks for the lack of variety in his diet!