Folks,
I am hoping that someone may be able to help with diagnosing what is wrong with one of our rabbits.
Tom is a Netherland dwarf, about 5 years old and kept outside in a well maintained hutch with a female rabbit and they love each other to bits.
First symptoms were runny eyes and sneezing.
Then he seemed to be feeling the cold / staying inside the sheltered box of the hutch instead of coming out as usual.
He also started drinking more water than usual and shaking his ears about as if they were itching or painful.
He just looked under the weather but was still eating and moving about OK.
After a week of not looking A1 we took him to the vet and he was prescribed Baytril.
After 5 days on the Baytril, he suddenly developed: significant hair loss around loins and groin with raw looking skin underneath (folicles of hair lost have white crusting around the base), spreading to scruff and below eyes and seemingly loss of balance with rear legs - if he tries to hop over something he tends to fall sideways or stagger to regain balance.
Been back to the vets today for a 'skin scrape' to check for mites but nothing found and the team of vets are stumped as to what is the matter with him.
We have asked if the latter symptoms could be a reaction to the Baytril but this is thought unlikely.
Vets are saying if his fur loss does not improve within 1 week, we could need to look at his "quality of life" and we know what that means.
He has had a treatment for mites and an injection of a different antibiotic anyhow.
Tom is still eating well, actually very hungrily which is a good sign but he just wants to sit still most of the time.
We did change from using blue paper pellet bedding in the litter trays to sawdust around 3 weeks ago so early symptoms could have been due to dust with that ? Sawdust has always been used below straw in the top part of the hutch. New batch of sawdust though from a different supplier. We have changed back now needless to say.
Any suggestions very warmly welcomed as we are quite concerned about our lovely Tom.
I am hoping that someone may be able to help with diagnosing what is wrong with one of our rabbits.
Tom is a Netherland dwarf, about 5 years old and kept outside in a well maintained hutch with a female rabbit and they love each other to bits.
First symptoms were runny eyes and sneezing.
Then he seemed to be feeling the cold / staying inside the sheltered box of the hutch instead of coming out as usual.
He also started drinking more water than usual and shaking his ears about as if they were itching or painful.
He just looked under the weather but was still eating and moving about OK.
After a week of not looking A1 we took him to the vet and he was prescribed Baytril.
After 5 days on the Baytril, he suddenly developed: significant hair loss around loins and groin with raw looking skin underneath (folicles of hair lost have white crusting around the base), spreading to scruff and below eyes and seemingly loss of balance with rear legs - if he tries to hop over something he tends to fall sideways or stagger to regain balance.
Been back to the vets today for a 'skin scrape' to check for mites but nothing found and the team of vets are stumped as to what is the matter with him.
We have asked if the latter symptoms could be a reaction to the Baytril but this is thought unlikely.
Vets are saying if his fur loss does not improve within 1 week, we could need to look at his "quality of life" and we know what that means.
He has had a treatment for mites and an injection of a different antibiotic anyhow.
Tom is still eating well, actually very hungrily which is a good sign but he just wants to sit still most of the time.
We did change from using blue paper pellet bedding in the litter trays to sawdust around 3 weeks ago so early symptoms could have been due to dust with that ? Sawdust has always been used below straw in the top part of the hutch. New batch of sawdust though from a different supplier. We have changed back now needless to say.
Any suggestions very warmly welcomed as we are quite concerned about our lovely Tom.
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