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Rabbit - Self Mutilation

The Duchess

The Duchess

Wise Old Thumper
Has anybody had experience with or can point me in the direction of anyone with experience of rabbit self mutilation.

One of our fosters came in having mutilated her dew lap, which healed with treatment. She has today opened up a very nasty wound at a different site on her body and is having emergency surgery to try and repair it today. I think (or thought) it might be due to boredom/confinement prior to her arriving, but after today I'm not sure. I need some help in how to prevent her repeating this.

Anyone heard of this being due to a physical problem rather than behavioural?

Please post any hands on experience you have - thank you.
 
rabbitnutrition said:
i haven't had any personal experience but could it be boredom has led it to become a habit?
just a thought?
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Hi there, yes, this has been my conclusion up until now and then today when she had allowed her previous wound to heal and dry up, she has opened up a gaping hole elsewhere despite now being spayed, given love and attention, and more space.

She's just come home but had to have a full on GA and sub cut stitches as she'd gnawed through to the muscle. Vet has never seen anything like it before.

I'm moving her to a different set of accommodation later today so that she can be protected from flies as her wound is a massive invitiation for flystrike, and somewhere that she can see what's what for the foreseeable future. I think she has 'learned' this behaviour as she no longer has the stress/need to be quite so frustrated.
 
I had a rabbit with neurological problems (she had seizures) who would pull her claws out. I'm sure it wasn't a behavioural/boredom issue for her.
 
abbymarysmokey said:
I had a rabbit with neurological problems (she had seizures) who would pull her claws out. I'm sure it wasn't a behavioural/boredom issue for her.
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:-( it's heartbreaking isn't it.

There aren't any other symptoms of neuro issues, but she does bite at her mesh doors to be let out and does a runner whenever the door is open so it is very likely a 'confinement' issue.
 
Maybe a good diet of fresh veg and hay would improve her problems?
Hay cuts down on boredom ,and toys and moving things in sight will stimulate her.
 
Sorry, I haven't got any experience of self mutilation in rabbits.

I should imagine you will have to go through a process of elimination to try and find out what causes her to do this. Even then there are no guarantess that she will stop.

She's is the best hands so hopefully this behaviour can become a thing of the past.

Good luck.:thumb:
 
Mrs. Bunnykins said:
Sorry, I haven't got any experience of self mutilation in rabbits.

I should imagine you will have to go through a process of elimination to try and find out what causes her to do this. Even then there are no guarantess that she will stop.

She's is the best hands so hopefully this behaviour can become a thing of the past.

Good luck.:thumb:
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thank you - I do hope so. She's already trying to undo her surgery from yesterday. I think she's licking it to pieces and the skin glus has already partially gone. We can't even give her an Elizabethan collar because of where the wound is. I just hope she gets enough stimulation in the coming days to help the healing and distract her from her mission.
 
Sorry can't help with the self mutilation bit, but we used bitter apple around wounds on our rats after surgery when one girl decided to chew her stitches, skin and some muscle away, 3 days after the op.

My vets now try to avoid using stitches and glue if possible because they 'think' the stitches may be more irritating after a couple of cases where small animals opened their wounds.
 
Does she scratch alot? I wonder if she feels very itchy and is biting to swamp that feeling with pain. There are a number of physical problems that can cause itching including liver problems and brain tumours.
 
halfpenny said:
Sorry can't help with the self mutilation bit, but we used bitter apple around wounds on our rats after surgery when one girl decided to chew her stitches, skin and some muscle away, 3 days after the op.

.
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bitter apple spray is excellent stuff. used it on a siamese cat that used to overgroom to point of injury. importent thing which i'm sure you are doing is to provide something else to do instead-and try not to do too many changes as its often a severe stress reaction-all changes are stress even if positive ones to an animal.
 
RedFraggle said:
Does she scratch alot? I wonder if she feels very itchy and is biting to swamp that feeling with pain. There are a number of physical problems that can cause itching including liver problems and brain tumours.
Click to expand...

Now it's interesting you say about the itching. She doesn't appear to scratch other than on that site. I have seen her scratch with her back foot and I keep her nails short to be sure that she can't rip.

Liver would be interesting due to the rubbish diet she was on before I'm betting. She has lost weight since being here despite being fed fairly freely and I put this down to her exercising an awful lot (and I mean a lot- she insists on play time almost constantly). So maybe bloods would be an idea as we know that liver can be an issue with weight loss too.

And brain tumour - well it would be a very low likelyhood but then there will always be some bunnies that succumb to such things. I shall discuss with the vet on Tuesday when I'm next in there.

Thank you
 
The Duchess said:
Now it's interesting you say about the itching. She doesn't appear to scratch other than on that site. I have seen her scratch with her back foot and I keep her nails short to be sure that she can't rip.

Liver would be interesting due to the rubbish diet she was on before I'm betting. She has lost weight since being here despite being fed fairly freely and I put this down to her exercising an awful lot (and I mean a lot- she insists on play time almost constantly). So maybe bloods would be an idea as we know that liver can be an issue with weight loss too.

And brain tumour - well it would be a very low likelyhood but then there will always be some bunnies that succumb to such things. I shall discuss with the vet on Tuesday when I'm next in there.

Thank you
Click to expand...

Have you done a general parasite treatment already? I have known a rat (not mine) chew it's leg off because of mites. Could also be an allergy. The other thing I noted with one rat I had was that after a GA she would scratch herself like mad and the vet and I put it down to the fact she would be put in a tank to be anaesthetised and the gas was irritating her skin, I used to have to bathe her afterwards. I'm not sure how they actually put bunnies under in the first instance.
 
RedFraggle said:
Have you done a general parasite treatment already? I have known a rat (not mine) chew it's leg off because of mites. Could also be an allergy. The other thing I noted with one rat I had was that after a GA she would scratch herself like mad and the vet and I put it down to the fact she would be put in a tank to be anaesthetised and the gas was irritating her skin, I used to have to bathe her afterwards. I'm not sure how they actually put bunnies under in the first instance.
Click to expand...

She has no signs of mites or fleas and I've not treated her as she has pretty much had an open wound since she arrived so jurisprudence told me not to. I did consider it to be something she felt was 'crawling' so I'll have a closer look - thing is of course the site she's itching wouldn't normally be a location that we'd find mites in the first instance - that would normally be where they can't clean like back of head/neck and bum/skirt.

Re the GA, Eleanor was given up in the first instance from her previous owner due to the wound needing fixing and her lack of desire to pay or bother and hence she was signed over to a vet. So no GA involved in her previously self harming and that's why I wonder if it's more likely due to habitual boredom and frustration.

But still a reaction to something or allergy has also crossed my mind
 
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