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Myxomatosis

Are your rabbits vaccinated against Myxi

  • Yes

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No (either never or not up to date)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

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Bindi

Warren Scout
I hope that this is in the right place... in terms of plagiarism, I'm sorry that I can't remember where I got it from...


Wild and unvaccinated rabbits have a 99% mortality rate, as they do not immediately produce antibodies.
Vaccinated rabbits recognise the disease and produce antibodies straight away, so the effects of Myxi are not as severe-and this gives them a 40-50% chance of surviving.

'Myxomatosis, although a nasty disease, is not always fatal. Rabbits can recover after about 3 months with the right care (and lots of luck).
I thought that I might give people an opportunity to treat if the worst happens, so I'm going to post information on here about what you can do for an infected rabbit.

'The disease affects the Rabbits by causing the eyes to swell and lumps to appear on the body, the first signs are usually noticed with the eyes swelling and on the face and nose, the risk to the Rabbit of secondary illness at this time is also great one of the main ones being Pneumonia, so as soon as you think your pet has a problem go straight to the vets who will be able to give injections of antibiotics every two days or to help prevent secondary complications. Generally keep you Rabbit warm the illness does better in the cooler temperatures so warmth helps. Although my wife or myself have no veterinary skills theses are all ideas gleaned from our own vet and nurse at the very good vets surgery where all our pets go, this site is to be updated and things added if you know of any thing else that can be tried while the rabbit has the illness please e-mail me so that the ideas can be added to the site for others to make use of, the care of the rabbit while they have the virus can be a struggle and can be distressing to the owner but you should never just give up, always consult your vet for the correct advice but the following has helped our rabbit and could help yours.

THINGS YOU CAN DO TO HELP.

Use a small aromatherapy Oil burner in the room where your rabbit is staying and burn a mix of 2 drops of each Eucalyptus, Tea Tree, and Elemi oil this will help the Rabbit to breath as the swelling around the nose can sometimes cause breathing difficulties.


Put 2 drops of each of the oils mentioned above onto a small cotton wool ball then place that near his or her cage over night to aid them through the night not wanting to leave the burner unattended and risk a fire.


Smear Vapor rub (Vicks or similar) onto a piece of card and place on top of a hot water bottle, the heat will help the vapor rise into the surroundings and this can help the breathing.


Place a saucer of water in the cage because sometimes the swelling around the mouth can make it sore for them to use their usual bottle, or if your Rabbit is a house Rabbit place several saucers around on the floor in what ever room goes to give him plenty of chance to drink.


Try to keep their eyes free from discharge by using luke warm black tea or luke warm water and cotton buds (the kind for cleaning your ears) to very gently wipe with a rolling motion away the discharge. If the eyes are too swollen and sore then wrap your bunny in a towel and place another on your lap then gently hold his or her eye open and get someone else to use cotton wall balls and soak them in the luke warm black tea then squeeze the cotton wall ball letting the tea flood the eye from one end and the white discharge will be washed out the other end then using clean cotton wall balls with a little tea clean the rest of the face area near the eyes to soften the crusty sores then when your rabbit washes he or she will get some of it off.


If your rabbit stops eating then you can try to feed him with a mixture put through a blender or liquidizer made up of the following

1 part rabbit pellet (Excell) or some thing similar try to get a pellet with a good content of fibre
1 part pumpkin flesh
1 part unsweetened pineapple juice

mix together, then blend into a purée the pineapple juice should soften the pellets enough then with a large gauge syringe available from your vets or chemist feed this to your rabbit this should help keep his strength up.


If your vet gives you medicine that needs to be put in your rabbits mouth try putting it on a cut up seedless grape our rabbit loves this and is now hooked on grapes.

General advice.
Keep a check on your rabbit and their cage or hutch for any signs of fleas as rabbit fleas are one of the carriers of the virus also you can use Vet kem Acclaim (which you should be able to get from your vets) to clean out your cage or hutch this helps control the chance of fleas. If you have cats or dogs then regularly check and treat them for fleas because they can bring rabbit fleas home on them if they go out into the fields or gardens which have other rabbits in. In Europe the mosquitoes are a major vector of the virus in Britain there is strong circumstantial evidence that mosquitoes or gnats can carry the virus so just keep a good eye on your pet, also be aware that if you get foxes in your garden at night looking for food they could also bring the fleas in to the area if they have been near rabbits that have got the virus. Even if you live in a town area as we do which is very built up you may still get them as we do.'
 
3 weeks ago I diagnosed the 5 rabbits which live over the road from me with myxie, some of mine were vaccinated and a mum and her babies were not .. this was due to one of to mum coming in to ARC pregnant and her then immediatly having 8 babies. Even though they were slightly too young to have vaccinated, my foster rabbits were vaccinated within 30 minutes of discovering that the other rabbits had myxie.

Over the roads rabbits were not vaccinated, fortuntely neither the vaccinated ones and the non vaccinated ones have not developed any symptoms of it. I have to consider that these were very lucky.

Janice
 
That's good. As long as you can keep them free of parasites, they have a chance, I believe. I'm lucky in that although my cat is teminally infested (been there, done all the treatments) I've never seen a flea on either of my babies, it's like they're immune. I think I'll go into flea powder overdrive if I ever see one.
 
I would, but I live in the U.S and myxi is not that big of a threat. The only way I think I could possibly get them vaccinated would be to have my vet get a shipment from somewhere else around the world. It would be basically a waste of money. But trust me, if it was needed they would have it!!
 
Our very first bun died due to myxi :cry: :cry: :cry: We nursed him for three weeks and then pnuemonia struck :cry: :cry: :cry:
We had taken notice of a woman that bred rabbits who told us that only wild buns could get myxi - we hadn't even heard of VHD either :(
We have all of our buns vaccinated for both Myxi and VHD - I still cannot live with the guilt I feel over Ebony :cry: :cry: :cry: If I had known we would have had him vaccinated and when I see him again I will tell him how very sorry I am :cry: :cry: :cry:
The only time that our vet will not vaccinate is when a bun is very poorly, if the bun recovers then it gets vaccinated immediately.
Our cat gets regular flea treatment and up to now we have seen no fleas on any of the buns that we have had or do have.
I know that deep in my heart I would have a bun that had not been vaccinated and caught myxi put to sleep - after seeing what it did to Ebony I know that the chances of an unvaccinated bun are virtually nil :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:
I'm so sorry Ebony - you live on through Ebony-Eyes and through all the buns past, present and future.
 
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