Red and cloudy eye?

[Alice]

Hi everyone!

 

I am new on this forum, but have been checking the site for a couple of months now. Sorry to say my first post is about a health problem.

I have a dwarf rabbit, now he is about 4 months old. My mother got it from a nearby pet shop when he was about a month old, but without any papers or medical history.

To be honest, I think the lady at the shop lied a bit about him being a dwarf, since he already weighs about 1 kg (2.2 pounds) , but I don’t really mind. If he is bigger, I can hug him more .

 

To get to the problem:

This week has been really hectic, and we didn’t have a lot of time to spend with him, so I have no idea if the problem is older than one day, but today we noticed that he has some problems with one of his eyes.

Namely:

 – the white part of the eye, around the iris, is now reddish;

 – his pupil seems somehow asymmetrical and has a white ring around it;

 – he keeps this eye a bit more closed than the other.

 

 Also, his eye is a bit cloudy, but this one is an older problem to be honest. However, this is my first bunny and his eye has been a bit cloudy since we bought him, so I thought it was just the way the light reflected; now I am not so sure.

 

We don’t have a lot of veterinarians that work with rabbits around here, so I can only get him to a doctor tomorrow evening for a check up. But I am worried sick and wondering if anyone has ever encountered something similar.

 

He eats normally and seems ok otherwise, except being a bit sad (which is assume is because for 3 days we didn’t really get to spend a lot of time with him, since he was happy over the weekend).

Does anyone have any idea what this could be?

 

Couldn’t figure out how to upload a photo to post, so here is a link to a photo of his eye.

[Bam]

Wellcome! I’m sorry you have a bunny health problem.

I think this is a case for a vet. The symptoms make me think of e cuniculi, a parasite that’s very common in rabbits. If the mother-rabbit is infected while pregnant, the parasite can interfere with the the development of the eyes in the unborn kits.

I quote here from a source I found: “• Signs involving the eyes—cataracts most common. The cataracts may become so severe that the lens ruptures,
causing inflammation of the iris (pigmented part of the eye) and other areas in the front part of the eye (known
as uveitis); white spots on the iris; blood in the anterior chamber of the eye, (the front part of the eye between the iris and the cornea; accumulation of blood known as hyphema”).
http://www.sawneeanimalclinic.com/downloads/encephalitozoonosis_in_rabbits.pdf

Cataracts, as you probably know, means the lens gets cloudy. 

You can treat the parasite with a dewormer, Panacur,  (fenbendazole), but that won’t fix the eye. It’s important to get rid of the parasite though, because it can cause more severe illness. 

[Monkeybun]

Definitely vet time. I agree with bam, sounds like EC to me. Even with that treatment, if his eye has started going cloudy, there’s no guarantee that it will be fixed, but with the EC treatment, hopefully it won’t get worse.

If it’s cataracts, there’s not much you can do, but a bunny that is blind in one eye can get by just fine. My boy Squirrel went blind in both eyes, and he still bounces around like a goofball.

[LBJ10]

Hmm, looks like it’s affecting the iris and not the cornea in that picture. I agree with Bam about the possibility of EC. It can cause inflammation of the iris, depending on where the infection decided to take hold.

[Alice]

We went to the vet today.

He seemed pretty calm about everything, told us it was a “conjunctival reaction” or something along those lines. And because of that the pupillary light reflex is assymetrical in the eyes. He put some drops in both eyes and told us to come for a check-up on Monday

We also found he had an allergic reaction. I never noticed it, it was just an area with a bit less fur, but the previous veterinarian told me it was just normal molting) and so the vet gave 2 injections. No idea what they were though.

Overall I think it went pretty good. I am still not sure what was the cause for the red eye, but I will ask for more details on Monday.

Thanks everyone for your answers! Will keep you posted.

[Bam]

Thank you for the update! Could the injections have been ivermectin (against mites)? Sometimes bunnies get an allergic reaction to fur-mites, a very common mite in bunnies, easily cured with f ex ivermectin.

[Author]

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