Over-Vaccinating our bunnies??

[Santa]

I think the important word there is "seemed". Because they are prey animals, they hide pain, discomfort, anxiety, fear etc extremely well. That's why it's our responsibility to make sure that we do care for them in the most appropriate way (e.g. right food, clean environment, exercise, companionship etc) regardless of how they "seem".

 

[DemiS]

I think the important word there is "seemed". Because they are prey animals, they hide pain, discomfort, anxiety, fear etc extremely well. That's why it's our responsibility to make sure that we do care for them in the most appropriate way (e.g. right food, clean environment, exercise, companionship etc) regardless of how they "seem".

They had vet checks, and no health problems showed up

 

[LionheadLuver]

I think it's all a bit paranoid thinking. Some rabbits are as tough as old boots, even if they are unneutered, unvaccinated, poor diet etc, and are healthy. And some rabbits are fragile little things, like Molly, round the clock care, clean environment, correct diet, vaccinated, neutered etc, but they are still unhealthy. I think it's good to neuter and vaccinate, but maybe it shouldn't be so pushed onto people. Keeping animals is the luck of the draw, some rabbits are ill their own lives, some never have a ill day in their life, and I don't think that any amount of medical care is going to change that.

 

[Santa]

They had vet checks, and no health problems showed up

Vet checks don't account for 'happy' though...also, if they are unvaccinated and get myxi then the next vet check won't be so problem-free!

I have an acquaintance who has a rabbit, living alone, in a small hutch with no hay or straw, and she feeds it mashed potato and weetabix. It has never been vaccinated (she says that she stopped giving hay to prevent mxyi) and the rabbit is 8 years old. It may well technically be ok at a vet check, but that doesn't mean that it's an appropriate way to keep a rabbit to optimise its health and welfare...

Keeping animals is the luck of the draw, some rabbits are ill their own lives, some never have a ill day in their life, and I don't think that any amount of medical care is going to change that.

To a certain extent that may be true, but it's not true when it comes to things that are preventable through certain sensible precautions like vaccination, and also to a large extent, diet.

 

[prettylupin]

Vet checks don't account for 'happy' though...also, if they are unvaccinated and get myxi then the next vet check won't be so problem-free!

I have an acquaintance who has a rabbit, living alone, in a small hutch with no hay or straw, and she feeds it mashed potato and weetabix. It has never been vaccinated (she says that she stopped giving hay to prevent mxyi) and the rabbit is 8 years old. It may well technically be ok at a vet check, but that doesn't mean that it's an appropriate way to keep a rabbit to optimise its health and welfare...

:thumb:

 

[SarahP]

I hope no-one thinks that my comments earlier were to say that I wouldn't vaccinate any future bunnies. What I'm saying is that I'm very uneasy about vaccinations, but that I can't see any alternative, ie in weighing up one risk against the other.

 

[DemiS]

Vet checks don't account for 'happy' though...also, if they are unvaccinated and get myxi then the next vet check won't be so problem-free!

I have an acquaintance who has a rabbit, living alone, in a small hutch with no hay or straw, and she feeds it mashed potato and weetabix. It has never been vaccinated (she says that she stopped giving hay to prevent mxyi) and the rabbit is 8 years old. It may well technically be ok at a vet check, but that doesn't mean that it's an appropriate way to keep a rabbit to optimise its health and welfare...



To a certain extent that may be true, but it's not true when it comes to things that are preventable through certain sensible precautions like vaccination, and also to a large extent, diet.

I thought potato was poisonous to rabbits :shock:
And I never said it was the appropriate way, I was only saying that un-neutered, un-vaccinated rabbits can still be healthy.

 

[Tamsin]

Not every unvaccinated rabbit gets myxi/VHD, your playing the odds. Odds are they may never be exposed so vacc is a waste of time/money or they are exposed and vacc saves their life and you never even know it.

There are people who have had unvaccinated rabbits years problem free. I'm sure a lot of people don't vaccinate up until the point where they get a case Which if you have rabbits long enough will happen someday even if its in 10 yrs time.

 

[Daisylop]

over vaccinating our bunnies??.... and our children!!
[sorry to go off thread]

 

[Mackers]

Thanks for all the replies guys - you've all made some very valid points. I don't think I'll ever be happy giving the amount of vaccinations to my buns that I do but as we've all said, what's the alternative?

I think we can only do what we believe is best at the time and be happy with that decision. If things change in the future and we later find out that what we did was wrong, we'll just have to try not to beat ourselves up about it.

 

[Troublesome Two]

Its for herd protection and the only vaccinations that children have are for some very horrid and dangerous diseases. But thats another thread.

I would always vaccinate buns for simple fact that that is what is suggested. All diseases are different as people have already said and will require different types of protection. Playing numbers is dangerous especially if you love your bun. How guilty would you feel if your bun dies for sake of saving £15 a year (per vac).

I guess technically if buns were sourced correctly they could all be just carriers or just have genetic immunity.

 

[halfpenny]

Its for herd protection and the only vaccinations that children have are for some very horrid and dangerous diseases. But thats another thread.

I would always vaccinate buns for simple fact that that is what is suggested. All diseases are different as people have already said and will require different types of protection. Playing numbers is dangerous especially if you love your bun. How guilty would you feel if your bun dies for sake of saving £15 a year (per vac).

I guess technically if buns were sourced correctly they could all be just carriers or just have genetic immunity.

I think that is the thing, people sometimes lose sight of the fact that vaccines stop killer diseases- look at smallpox, it is now classed as extinct, thanks to vaccination. This will never happen with FIV, Felv in cats and myxo and VHD because we can't control/ vaccinate the wild populations.

I am willing to risk a possible reduction in general immunity, if it actually happens, compared to the alternative.

 

[sidereus7]

While this is luckily not a concern for me at the moment, as the US doesn't have much myxi at all and doesn't vaccinate any buns, this is definitely very interesting.

I am certainly no expert in any fashion, and this is all my hacked conjecture, but I would be hesitant to group cats and dogs in the same group with rabbits. Rabbits are different in so many ways, especially in that they are prey animals, not predators. To me, this says that rabbits are better designed for speed and evasion rather than being hardy creatures. I'm just saying that rabbits might not have the preservation mechanisms that dogs and cats do.

But until we know, I think it's better to over-vaccinate than risk a fatal disease.

 

[areia]

with bunnies im a bit differant i get mine vax but with cats ive grown up with cats all my life my mum got all her kittens cats etc there first lot of jabs then never bothered with any more the neighbour has her cats vaxed every year she has lost 4 cats due to having more illneses were as weve had 9 and only lost one un natrualy my cat got poisoned the rest all have died of old age but i would also go by were you live if i lived in a city then i would vax more than i would if i lived in a quieter areas

 

[Sam_Spice]

I know my cat only went to the vets once in her life, to get speyed, and she lived happily and healthily until 18 My yorkshire terrier also only had her puppy jabs and is still fighting fit at 13 years old and hasn't shown any signs of slowing down yet *touch-wood* and still loves spending 8hours in a field trying to herd 4 horses :roll::lol: She's even a pedigree (which I've heard live shorter lives) but you would never tell the little scruffbag :lol:

As with similar posts, until there is something better, I will carry on vaccinating :wave: Like with the panacur updates which have only happened all recently, hopefully more vaccination news will occur sooner rather than later

 

[Mackers]

Playing numbers is dangerous especially if you love your bun. How guilty would you feel if your bun dies for sake of saving £15 a year (per vac).

But my thread was never about saving the cost of the vaccination. It was always about 'are we doing more harm to our buns by vaccinating them so often than by only vaccinating once or twice during their lifetime?' Playing the 'if you love your bun' game is also very dangerous. We ALL love our buns and always do what we believe it best for them but it's because of my love for my buns that I question if regular vaccination is actually in their best interests.

Believe me, if a 'one-off lifetime immunity' vaccine cost £1000 and a '6 monthly but could cause life-threatening side effects vaccine' cost 50p, I'd pay the £1000 and go for the vaccine that I thought would cause least harm to my buns.

 

[SarahP]

But my thread was never about saving the cost of the vaccination. It was always about 'are we doing more harm to our buns by vaccinating them so often than by only vaccinating once or twice during their lifetime?' Playing the 'if you love your bun' game is also very dangerous. We ALL love our buns and always do what we believe it best for them but it's because of my love for my buns that I question if regular vaccination is actually in their best interests.

Believe me, if a 'one-off lifetime immunity' vaccine cost £1000 and a '6 monthly but could cause life-threatening side effects vaccine' cost 50p, I'd pay the £1000 and go for the vaccine that I thought would cause least harm to my buns.

I totally agree - great post.

 

[Santa]

Is there any suggestion that in healthy rabbits, it does cause life-threatening side-effects? I know that cats can develop aggressive sarcomas at the injection site, but I haven't heard of similar problems in rabbits.

As they've recently reduced the recommendation for revaccination from a year to 6 months, that suggests to me that whatever 'research' has been done on myxo at least, suggests that frequent revaccination is necessary. Thinking about it, myxo and VHD are the same given each time, whereas the dog/cat ones there's an initial course followed by boosters, which suggests that the immune response mechanism may work slightly differently for either these diseases, or in rabbits.

Next time I'm in, I might ask my vet if she does annual booster vaccinations for her cat...

 

[marie_kubiak]

Next time I'm in, I might ask my vet if she does annual booster vaccinations for her cat...

I do

 

[bunlover]

I do

marie while you are here it would be interesting to get a vets opinion on this, do you know if its been found to cause problems in rabbits? now iv always had my rabbits vaccinated but we used to do it annually then we realised the area was high risk and do the myxi every 6 months i too wonder about the stress etc of vet trip and injections and any future harm it may cause but having had a bun contract myxi within 6 months of the vaccination i truely believe without the vaccs id be putting her to sleep...she is still going strong at over 11years now and no i have not stopped vaccinating. just wondered a vets opinion! :wave: