It's been a worrying past 36 hours, as I almost lost my lovely Henna the Belgian Hare.
For those of you who have never heard of "Floppy Bunny Syndrome" please take some time to read this article now:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~jabuck/WARCI/other_ailments.htm
A link to this article on another forum almost certainly saved Henna's life, by enabling me to know what was wrong with her and take appropriate action.
On Sunday night I was sitting reading in the living room, where my lovely new Belgian Hare doe is living for now in a large indoor rabbit cage.
At midnight she was fine - drinking well, I noticed, eating hay, and I was a bit surprised to see her actually using the mineral lick hanging on the side of the cage. It's been there months as a useless cage ornament; I bought a few on impulse in the warm weather only to be steadfastly ignored by all my rabbits!
Shortly after I heard a soft bump from the cage and realised she was having trouble standing, wobbling all over and falling. Oh no! I thought - floppy bunny! Or Floppy Hare in her case.
I took her out and gently felt her all over from nose to tail, flexing limbs, feeling bones, testing muscles, looking for signs of injury, but nothing... no tenderness or strain anywhere, in fact she seemed unusually pliant. Her legs were like jelly... put on her feet she just crumpled and fell over!
Yesterday morning I rushed off to the chemists and got Vitamin E capsules and live yogurt, after opening a can of tomatoes and draining the juice, giving her some of that via syringe because potassium loss has been previously thought to be a cause.
I gave her a Vitamin E capsule with yogurt in a syringe, but as the capsules turned out to be oil, she had two more yesterday just squirted into her mouth.
12 hours later she started to look better imperceptibly... by the evening she was definitely improved and muscle tone was starting to come back... she even was able to wriggle a bit when I picked her up.
24 hours later and she was almost back to normal - still eating for England, I have never seen a rabbit pack away so much food in such a short space of time! She never eats this much normally, so I let her get on with it, thinking she might know something I don't. At midnight last night she also started drinking again, oddly enough she hadn't wanted any water at all yesterday... and even more odd.... she started licking the mineral lick again.
This morning she's very bright, sitting up normally, hopping a bit, and well on the way to normality. She can hop, jump into her cage again, and is acting as though nothing happened.
She didn't have it particularly badly, but several times I watched her falling about and asked myself what an average vet would have made of her symptoms... almost certainly it would have been a "jab of Baytril and bring her back tomorrow" situation..... That would have killed her, for sure.
I strongly suggest you print out that article and keep it somewhere safe on hand if you have never yet had to deal with this worrying problem!
It can affect any rabbit, of whatever breed, and I have heard it happening in Giant breeds, French Lops, Mini Lops, Dwarf Lops.... and others.... I am not even sure that the rabbit savvy vets know of this cure, so please make yourself aware, it could save a life.
For those of you who have never heard of "Floppy Bunny Syndrome" please take some time to read this article now:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~jabuck/WARCI/other_ailments.htm
A link to this article on another forum almost certainly saved Henna's life, by enabling me to know what was wrong with her and take appropriate action.
On Sunday night I was sitting reading in the living room, where my lovely new Belgian Hare doe is living for now in a large indoor rabbit cage.
At midnight she was fine - drinking well, I noticed, eating hay, and I was a bit surprised to see her actually using the mineral lick hanging on the side of the cage. It's been there months as a useless cage ornament; I bought a few on impulse in the warm weather only to be steadfastly ignored by all my rabbits!
Shortly after I heard a soft bump from the cage and realised she was having trouble standing, wobbling all over and falling. Oh no! I thought - floppy bunny! Or Floppy Hare in her case.
I took her out and gently felt her all over from nose to tail, flexing limbs, feeling bones, testing muscles, looking for signs of injury, but nothing... no tenderness or strain anywhere, in fact she seemed unusually pliant. Her legs were like jelly... put on her feet she just crumpled and fell over!
Yesterday morning I rushed off to the chemists and got Vitamin E capsules and live yogurt, after opening a can of tomatoes and draining the juice, giving her some of that via syringe because potassium loss has been previously thought to be a cause.
I gave her a Vitamin E capsule with yogurt in a syringe, but as the capsules turned out to be oil, she had two more yesterday just squirted into her mouth.
12 hours later she started to look better imperceptibly... by the evening she was definitely improved and muscle tone was starting to come back... she even was able to wriggle a bit when I picked her up.
24 hours later and she was almost back to normal - still eating for England, I have never seen a rabbit pack away so much food in such a short space of time! She never eats this much normally, so I let her get on with it, thinking she might know something I don't. At midnight last night she also started drinking again, oddly enough she hadn't wanted any water at all yesterday... and even more odd.... she started licking the mineral lick again.
This morning she's very bright, sitting up normally, hopping a bit, and well on the way to normality. She can hop, jump into her cage again, and is acting as though nothing happened.
She didn't have it particularly badly, but several times I watched her falling about and asked myself what an average vet would have made of her symptoms... almost certainly it would have been a "jab of Baytril and bring her back tomorrow" situation..... That would have killed her, for sure.
I strongly suggest you print out that article and keep it somewhere safe on hand if you have never yet had to deal with this worrying problem!
It can affect any rabbit, of whatever breed, and I have heard it happening in Giant breeds, French Lops, Mini Lops, Dwarf Lops.... and others.... I am not even sure that the rabbit savvy vets know of this cure, so please make yourself aware, it could save a life.