Sore hocks or mites?

[Ava]

About a week and a half ago, when I went to clip my bunny’s nails, I noticed he was starting to lose the fur off the bottom of his paws. I washed them off, scrubbed his cage, and thought nothing of it. We went on vacation(Alvin came with us), and he was basically stuck in the cage almost the whole time. I noticed during that time that his paws were getting worse and by the time we got home, he had lost all the fur off the bottom of his front paws and off the toes on his hind paws.

I was given the advice to use essential oils such as lavender or chamomile, which I couldn’t find, but found a cream with chamomile in it and used that. I’ve also been using an antibiotic ointment. I do not have a rabbit savvy vet to help me identify whether or not he has sore hocks or mites or how to treat him. I’m on my own, basically.

I just would like to know if I should continue doing what I’m doing whether he has mites or sore hocks, would this treatment be ok with either one? Or should I change something?

His paws still look really bad, but I can now see pink skin instead of scabs, so I guess I’m on the right track? I’d just appreciate any and all advice I can get. The picture was taken today, his paws have a shine to them because I had just applied antibiotic cream to them. His nails still do need to be cut, but I’m trying to keep him as stress free as possible right now and anytime I barely touch his paws he’s not happy about it, so I’m letting the nails go for now.

 

[RabbitPam]

I urge you to get a second opinion from another vet and see one asap. This is not good, and will not clear up with simple, unmedicated home remedy treatments. You need meds, either topical or injected, to address what is going on. Since it’s wide spread, it may be stemming from an internal illness. At a minimum, there may be something aggravating the feet in your habitat that needs changing. I say this because I just had to do that myself, and that was from only one small red spot on one foot.

Check your phone book for vets listed as, or having, “Exotics”. Those are more familiar with rabbits. Also, you can search Petfinder.com to locate rescues in your zip code area. Once you find them, call and ask if they can recommend any vets that treat rabbits. There are many dog/cat vets around, so often they have one person on their staff that specializes in the other mammals. You are trying to locate that person. You can call cat/dog vets to ask about it as well.

What you must do is get your bunny checked out. If it’s a simple solution now all the better. But waiting can be much more serious and painful for your poor girl.

Also, check your habitat for any water leaks from water bottles or pee outside the litter pan. You want to clean up any moisture. One product my vet recommended for soothing and some comfort is Aloe Vera. I got a pure gel in my local health food store. That was to help her until she could get to the dr. appt. for the medicated cream that was perscribed.

[LittlePuffyTail]

I don’t have any additional info to add, other than I really urge you to contact a vet asap. Those feet look really bad and painful.

I also want to caution against using any type of essential oils on your bunny. I recently read an article that some natural oils, alone or combined, can be deadly to animals.

[Sarita]

Definitely find a vet – those poor paws do not look good and there is a chance for infection if you do not seek the professional help of a vet.

Also what kind of cage does he have – is it wire bottom? Also as Rabbitpam mentioned, keeping the cage bottom clean and dry is a must. Nevertheless, professional help is a must and the sooner the better.

[Ava]

Thanks for the advice. I’ve been to three different vets so far and none of them have been able to help(one was quite rude). I live in Taiwan, so Petfinder won’t work out for me, and I don’t have a phone book. But, I talked with my dad, and he says he might know of one other vet in town. If it’s not storming, we’ll go there tomorrow, hopefully this one will work out.

He has a wire cage with a litter box in it. My dad is building him a really nice rabbit house, but it won’t be finished for awhile yet. I found some cardboard to put down on the floor of his cage for now. He has the run of my room when I’m in here and is in his cage when I’m gone and at night, so he’s not stuck in the cage all the time.

[Sarita]

That sounds frustrating – I hope the new vet can help.

It sounds like you are making some progress to keep him off the wire bottom so that should help – also keeping the area dry is a must – moisture can cause problems like this as much as wire bottom cages.

Just make sure that the vet does not prescribe any oral penicillin drugs (like Amoxicillin) or Frontline.

Please keep us updated!

[Beka27]

Is the brownish gray stuff whatever ointment you put on, or is that what the actual feet are looking like? I don’t know if it’s the ointment making them look worse. Have you washed that stuff off yet?

[Ava]

The ointment was clear, that’s the actual color of his feet, except now they’re dried up and cracked again since I haven’t reapplied the ointment(no I didn’t wash it off)per the advice given.

[Beka27]

Oh wow. I really have no advice other than he needs to be seen ASAP. I haven’t seen anything like that, but it looks absolutely painful… Poor guy.

[Ava]

Well, it took awhile, and due to a clueless receptionist, we almost left that vet’s office, but we finally sorted through her issues with us and were able to see the vet. He took one look at Alvin’s paws and declared the problem to be mites. He gave Alvin two shots(which angered him greatly!) and gave me some oral medication to give to him over the next week. He also gave us a huge bag of rabbit food which he said had vitamins added to it that would help Alvin’s skin. It’s a Japanese brand that I’ve never heard of before, Yeaster. The food on the left is what I’m feeding Alvin now, the food on the right is what the vet gave us. I don’t like that dye has been added to the red pellets… but if it has vitamins that Alvin needs to help his skin, then I guess I can feed it.

Hopefully Alvin’s paws will only get better now, I’m really glad we were able to finally find a vet!  I’m sure Alvin will forgive me someday for subjecting him to the torturous shots, but for now he’s still grumbling and thumping his feet at me.

[Roberta]

I think you’ll find the red colouring is one of the supplements so I would not be concerned about the colour in this instance.
So glad you found a vet that could help. Lots of healing vibes for Little Alvin, I’m sure some craisins or some other tasty treat will help him forgive you.

Just checked out some links and it is apparently the top Rabbit food over there. It is specifically Rabbit food not a generic small animal mix. It also comes in 3 grades, Young Rabbits/Nursing Mothers, 7 months and Up, Senior.

http://www.petronize.com.sg/product…kg%29.html

[BB Administrator]

Edited to add:  Sorry — this is BinkyBunny in Admin mode. I forgot to switch my hat over. 

Wow. I’ve never heard of mites on the just the feet. But because they are so raw, you would still want to take all the same precautions you would with sore hocks as if mites are causing his feet to be bare, then sore hocks will develop with zero padding — so you could be just dealing with both. So it’s good that you are giving him a softer place in his cage. The cardboard is good because you can easily replace that when he pees on it. Some times even carpet can cause sore hocks on a bunny with thin fur (like Rexes) and since your bunny already has zero fur, you are definitely in a difficult situation. I know you said you didn’t want to stress him out anymore with a nail trim, but if you were not able to get that done at the vets, you should try and do that right away because the long nails can actually cause more pressure on the pads of the feet and cause more problems with healing. It will help the healing process for his nails to be trimmed.

Keep us updated with how things progress!  Sending healing vibes!

Edited to add: Just did a quick google search and checked out a few of Dana Krempels responses and found out that mange can sometimes be isolated to the feet  (though I’d imagine it could spread).   This is very educational for me!

Helloworld!!

[LittlePuffyTail]

I would also suggest giving him something soft to rest his feet on. A fleece blanket maybe, if he’s not a chewer. He must be very sore on his little toes.

[Ava]

I tried cutting Alvin’s nails today. I laid him on his back as I usually do when trimming his nails, and he just looked at me as usual(he doesn’t trance, just lays back). But, when I was about to cut one nail, he squealed and jumped-he’s never done that before. At first, I thought I got the quick, but I didn’t. I tried just trimming the very tips of the nails, but he still squealed, so I stopped. I think I’ll wait a few days and try again, but I agree, they need to be cut soon, they’re way too long.

After the trip to the vet, I scrubbed his cage down and bought him a brand new litter box. I didn’t have any cardboard that could cover the cage floor, so I put a clean rug in there instead. He seems to enjoy it. 

Alvin’s feet still look bad, but he appears to be feeling better. I had been leaving him out of his cage at night since he had been feeling lousy and not getting into mischief. But, last night he woke me up by jumping on my bed, racing up and down me, doing a binky, and snuffling my face! It was too cute! But, unfortunately for him, I had to put him in his cage for the rest of the night since his activity level went up. When he gets hyper he jumps on my desk if I’m not at it and then has easy access to the wires.

That’s good to hear about the food, thanks for the link. I had looked at the website for Yeaster on the bag of food, but it was all in Japanese, so I couldn’t read it.

[Ava]

*UPDATE*

I took a picture of Alvin’s paws last night right before I applied the medication. His fur is starting to grow back! yay!

This is day 3 of the oral and cream medications.

 

 

 I’m going to submit poor Alvin to torture this afternoon when I make another attempt to cut his nails…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[LittlePuffyTail]

I’m glad they are starting to improve.

[Sarita]

That’s great – they do look better!

[tanlover14]

Awww, I have no experience with either sore hocks or the mites but I just wanted to pop in and say we’re sending lots of healing vibes for poor Alvins little feeties! That looks absolutely painful but the last picture looks much better for sure and glad to see his hair is starting to grow back! He’s lucky to have such a good bunny parent!!!! Taking him to multiple vets had to be absolutely frustrating but I definitely agree you needed help with this problem and glad you could finally find someone savvy enough to help treat him!

[Ava]

*UPDATE 2*

It’s day 6 of the medications and I took another photo of Alvin’s paws. I got all four of them in this photo. I was able to clip his nails(the day I last posted here), but they’re still long because of the quicks. I’ll just  have to start clipping them more frequently to get the quicks to recess. Alvin is back to his old self, he’s happy, bouncy, and gets in a lot of trouble! As fast as his paws are healing, I’m sure the next update will have his paws back to normal! *fingers crossed*

[LittlePuffyTail]

His feet look awesome! I’m glad to see that! He’s so super adorable in that pic!

[tanlover14]

Awww, so glad to see his little feeties doing better.. and I have to agree, he does look super adorable

[Author]

Messages