permabunny
New Kit
Hi all! I have lurked in a bunch of threads here before but I just joined when I realized I could just post myself!
My girl Rosie (adopted in 2017, I think she's about 8 or 9, large REW lady, spayed) has been having some respiratory issues, and now I'm also worried about some renal/urinary issues. She has been at the vet and has another appointment next week, and I also emailed them, but I have a lot of health anxiety with my rabbits so I wanted to ask if anyone had any experiences with any of this here as well. Maybe there's some best practices I can start doing while I wait for my vet.
Anyways here goes - some back story first
I had another rabbit Leia, who for a really long time would have some sneezing fits and a wet nose, and when I took her to my vet (I've now switched to an exotics only vet) he said she seemed fine, but to come back when she got worse. She started having white boogies (only a few at a time and could breathe ok) and so I took her back, and they put her and Rosie on a round of Baytril for 10 days. I saw little improvement and they kind of just said, well, just come back if it gets worse. Leia then passed away shortly after from an issue with stasis.
I unfortunately also had my girl Pandora pass around the same time, one day after months of a reoccurring weepy eye (that my old vet flushed and had given me eye drops for, but that's it) randomly had a slight head tilt and some weird tremors, but declined quickly and passed. I wasn't extremely happy with how my vet handled all this and it was a lot to lose multiple in the span of a month. They were all seniors, but still. I wondered if it was e cuniculi but we never tested for it.. just wanted to include that in case it was relevant.
Rosie then started to show the same symptoms, with clear nasal discharge, sneezing, and then a little while later some of the white boogers. I made an appointment at the exotics only vet (which unfortunately is 1h40min drive from me.. she hates the drive) and took her in.
We started with nebulizing, just with some Acetylcysteine, but she haaaaated it. So much. I think initially they weren't sure if she actually had an infection but then her boogers got a bit more noticeable to them. When I went back for her follow-up we decided to do a culture/swab of her nose and in the meantime we started with Duplo injections (one a week) while we waiting for the culture results, and if we got the results and we needed to switch course, we would.
Culture came back, Bordetella was one of the ones that seemed to be causing it (forget the other) and we switched from the injections to more Baytril, this time for 14 days, and if it doesn't work we'll switch to a different medication that they'll have to order in. I'm a week into the Baytril now, she hates it so much and I have to fight her every 12 hours to get it into her.
When we were nebulizing, I felt like the stress of the situation would sometimes make her have a day or so where she wasn't interested in food and would hide most of the day. I'd wait and monitor all day, get worried, and then email my vet and bam all of a sudden after a good 10 hour hunger strike she eats and poops. That happened twice I'm pretty sure.
Same thing happened yesterday with the Baytril. Now, also, I've noticed that her litterbox habits seem a bit worse. Her and Leia were never 100% with peeing in the litterbox so I haven't thought too much of it, but while laying with her and tempting her with veggies last night I found she drinks A LOT of water (bowl), and went back to drink like 4 times in the hour I layed with her. She also pees a lot (litterbox is cleaned once every 1-2 days and it's always full of pee) and lately I'm changing her blankets a lot too since she's peeing right outside the litterbox, and elsewhere too. But also in it. It has a notch cut out of it so she doesn't have to jump in or anything.
Last night I also caught her pee on the floor, but the pee was a red colour, and looked a bit chalky. I'll attach a picture. When I picked up the blanket to change it there was definitely a larger liquid stain around this smaller red chalky stain. The only red colour can think would cause this would be from the clovers in their hay? But to me this is still unusual. I hope it's not blood and sent a pic to the vet too, I'm waiting on an email back this morning.
So now I'm worried about renal disease but I'm not sure if I'm just being a bit too anxious and it's maybe a UTI, or her being a bit angry with me for the he chasing and meds 2x a day... I heard they often don't live long after dx of renal disease (maybe a year) and this makes me so sad because just before she started showing the respiratory symptoms I was about to bond her to my boy Darwin who also lost his pal recently (I have all senior rabbits, hurts the heart ugh).
(Bonus pic of her cute little bum yesterday
)
My girl Rosie (adopted in 2017, I think she's about 8 or 9, large REW lady, spayed) has been having some respiratory issues, and now I'm also worried about some renal/urinary issues. She has been at the vet and has another appointment next week, and I also emailed them, but I have a lot of health anxiety with my rabbits so I wanted to ask if anyone had any experiences with any of this here as well. Maybe there's some best practices I can start doing while I wait for my vet.
Anyways here goes - some back story first
I had another rabbit Leia, who for a really long time would have some sneezing fits and a wet nose, and when I took her to my vet (I've now switched to an exotics only vet) he said she seemed fine, but to come back when she got worse. She started having white boogies (only a few at a time and could breathe ok) and so I took her back, and they put her and Rosie on a round of Baytril for 10 days. I saw little improvement and they kind of just said, well, just come back if it gets worse. Leia then passed away shortly after from an issue with stasis.
I unfortunately also had my girl Pandora pass around the same time, one day after months of a reoccurring weepy eye (that my old vet flushed and had given me eye drops for, but that's it) randomly had a slight head tilt and some weird tremors, but declined quickly and passed. I wasn't extremely happy with how my vet handled all this and it was a lot to lose multiple in the span of a month. They were all seniors, but still. I wondered if it was e cuniculi but we never tested for it.. just wanted to include that in case it was relevant.
Rosie then started to show the same symptoms, with clear nasal discharge, sneezing, and then a little while later some of the white boogers. I made an appointment at the exotics only vet (which unfortunately is 1h40min drive from me.. she hates the drive) and took her in.
We started with nebulizing, just with some Acetylcysteine, but she haaaaated it. So much. I think initially they weren't sure if she actually had an infection but then her boogers got a bit more noticeable to them. When I went back for her follow-up we decided to do a culture/swab of her nose and in the meantime we started with Duplo injections (one a week) while we waiting for the culture results, and if we got the results and we needed to switch course, we would.
Culture came back, Bordetella was one of the ones that seemed to be causing it (forget the other) and we switched from the injections to more Baytril, this time for 14 days, and if it doesn't work we'll switch to a different medication that they'll have to order in. I'm a week into the Baytril now, she hates it so much and I have to fight her every 12 hours to get it into her.
When we were nebulizing, I felt like the stress of the situation would sometimes make her have a day or so where she wasn't interested in food and would hide most of the day. I'd wait and monitor all day, get worried, and then email my vet and bam all of a sudden after a good 10 hour hunger strike she eats and poops. That happened twice I'm pretty sure.
Same thing happened yesterday with the Baytril. Now, also, I've noticed that her litterbox habits seem a bit worse. Her and Leia were never 100% with peeing in the litterbox so I haven't thought too much of it, but while laying with her and tempting her with veggies last night I found she drinks A LOT of water (bowl), and went back to drink like 4 times in the hour I layed with her. She also pees a lot (litterbox is cleaned once every 1-2 days and it's always full of pee) and lately I'm changing her blankets a lot too since she's peeing right outside the litterbox, and elsewhere too. But also in it. It has a notch cut out of it so she doesn't have to jump in or anything.
Last night I also caught her pee on the floor, but the pee was a red colour, and looked a bit chalky. I'll attach a picture. When I picked up the blanket to change it there was definitely a larger liquid stain around this smaller red chalky stain. The only red colour can think would cause this would be from the clovers in their hay? But to me this is still unusual. I hope it's not blood and sent a pic to the vet too, I'm waiting on an email back this morning.
So now I'm worried about renal disease but I'm not sure if I'm just being a bit too anxious and it's maybe a UTI, or her being a bit angry with me for the he chasing and meds 2x a day... I heard they often don't live long after dx of renal disease (maybe a year) and this makes me so sad because just before she started showing the respiratory symptoms I was about to bond her to my boy Darwin who also lost his pal recently (I have all senior rabbits, hurts the heart ugh).
(Bonus pic of her cute little bum yesterday
)Attachments
Last edited:
