Help needed for Magnus

This is my foster bun Magnus -


He arrived in the rescue with a urinary infection, an abcess on his jaw and he is not able to hop like normal bunnies.

I got him bonded with one of our long term bunnies who he is mad about (dont think he has ever had a partner before).
Our vet has been great and we have managed to reduce the abcess to nothing and get rid of his urinary infection with Depocillin injections and marbocyl.
However this seems to have left him with another problem. About every 2 days he is absolutley caked in poos. Each poo is well formed but is stuck together and it sticks to him. Its almost like he doesn't poo every day but he saves it up for a couple of days and then it all floods out. The vet and I originally thought it might be the way he holds his back end because he doesn't hop but I am not sure.
He has had 28 days of Lapizole (along with my 9 other buns!:shock
We have tried glucosamine, and metacam incase it is a joint thing - no improvement.
We did a trial of zantac (just incase it was a gut infection) and he is on 4weekly injections of B12 - still no improvement
So now we have changed antibiotics and we are giving him septrin - no improvement.
I am washing his bum every couple of days and in this weather using a hairdryer to dry him out. I am trying a bit of vaseline on his bum too to help stop the poo sticking.

But I am at a loss. It really upsets me to see Magnus like this. He is such a lovely rabbit and tolerates any treatment we give him really well.
So I was hoping someone here might have any ideas or experiences of something similar that I could share with our vet.

If it's his caecals he's getting in a mess with it may be that he has nerve damage meaning he cannot 'feel' when his caecum is expelling the caecotrophs and that the function of his caecum is sluggish.

Ranitidine (Zantac) increases the motitlity of the lower GI tract (aswell as being an anti GI ulcer med). Perhaps this may help regulate the motility of his caecum, although it wont do anything to 'repair' any innervation to that area.

Some Fibreplex may help increase his fibre intake and establish a good balance of gut flora. This, in turn may improve the function of his caecum.

If it is all due to 'nerve damage' then unfortunately the problem is likely to be chronic and degenerative. I have a bun with this problem as a result of a previous 'active' EC.

Thank you for your reply Jane
I wondered if there is partial paralysis/nerve damage and that might explain why he is not hopping properly either.
How do you manage with yours?

Shel said:

Thank you for your reply Jane
I wondered if there is partial paralysis/nerve damage and that might explain why he is not hopping properly either.
How do you manage with yours?

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He seems to manage not to get in a mess. There is always numerous caecals over the floor of his enclosure at about 1000hrs every day. I put them into a tidy pile and he then eats them.................. :mrgreen:

Occasionally he gets one stuck to his belly and as he is not 100% mobile he cant get to it so I have to remove it for him.

Ranitidine did not do a huge amount for him, but it may be worth a try for Magnus as it has helped another Bun I have who has a 'sluggish caecum'.