Lip Scabs

[Genie]

We have adopted a 12 yr old senior bun about 1.5 years ago and have been struggling with a condition where scabs form around her lips.  She does not have any scabs anywhere else but her lips.  We have finally found a solution to her problem and just wanted to share this info with any other bun parents who’s buns are suffering from this.

When we first got her, her lips were totally normal, the scabs only appeared a couple months in.  When we go on vacations, we leave our buns with my parents and have noticed that her lips start healing within the first days of being there.  I was sure it had to be allergies.  

We have brought her to several different vets who were perplexed about her conditions thinking it could be mites we treated her with revolution and ivermectin. That did not work. We have also tried treating her for rabbit syphilis (unusual because she didn’t have any scabs on her genitals and the other buns did not catch anything from her) with penicillin and that did not work.  We also tried using a hibitane solution thinking it was bacterial, still no luck.  We also tried baytril with no improvements.

Being sure that it was allergies, we tried changing everything in her pen.  We changed the dog pen to one that is coated with plastic, changed the source of hay, changed her pellets, took certain veggies away one at a time, changed the water dish, changed the bedding (our rabbit is incontinent),  changed her toys, changed the location of her pen, and basically everything you can think of.  Still no improvements.  We even tried giving her benedryl for children and that did only minimal improvements.

We were finally giving up and thinking there was no cure for her, we just decided to keep removing the scabs and try to keep the mouth area as clean as possible.  

I tried to figure out what difference my parents do when they have her and my mom says that she really cleans the veggies she gives them by soaking them in water and soap and rinsing it out several times. 

We first tried taking all her veggies away, and her mouth scabs disappeared in about 2 days.  We were ecstatic.

We tried just soaking the veggies for a couple minutes and rinsing it out but her scabs came back, not as bad but it came back.

We then tried soaking the veggies over night with some dish soap and rinsing the veggies out very well after, and her mouth has been virtually scab free since doing this.  

Our guess is that our bun has an allergy to the pesticides that are in the veggies.  

Anyways, hopefully this method helps any buns out there that are suffering from the same thing.  After spending loads of money at the vet and on medicine, it was as simple as soaking her veggies and rinsing it out very well that worked.

[Azerane]

Wow, that is highly unusual. Thank you for sharing. I’d be scared to wash with dish soap, but I’ve heard of people soaking with some vinegar. My concern with soaking with dish soap is that the greens will absorb some of that soap.

I’m very glad that you’ve found a solution to a very unusual problem.

[Genie]

We haven’t tried vinegar but it would be worth a shot! I guess we could always just buy organic, but it’ll be pretty expensive for us as we have 6 buns to feed and we don’t even buy ourselves organic veggies haha.

[Azerane]

I can’t afford to buy organic either, so no one is blaming you there.

[LBJ10]

When I think of scabs around the mouth, I think of bunny syphilis. http://www.medirabbit.com/EN/Skin_diseases/Bacterial/Syph_gen.html
Sometimes they are big, like in the pictures. Sometimes they are quite small.

I have not heard of an allergic reaction such as this. But I guess if the scabs go away when you take the veggies away, it would be easy to assume that they are the culprit.

[jerseygirl]

Wow! Great that you found a solution. She must be highly sensitive. It must be a relief now knowing and that you won’t have to be medicating her. I too had immediately thought of rabbit syphilis (which can present just around eyes, lips, nose) but it seems it was something more mysterious.

I just want to say, thank you for adoption such a senior rabbit!! It is obvious she is in great care with you.

A suggestion: Could you buy organic just for her, stick with regular greens for rest of your rabbits? Or is she in with other rabbits? Or if you’re green thumbs, you could try growing enough just for her.

[LBJ10]

I buy organic greens for my buns. It depends on where you go, but you can get them for not too much more than conventional.

[Genie]

Yea, the vet thought that it might have been rabbit syphilis but when we treated her for it with the penicillin injections (which was a nightmare to administer) she didn’t get any better.

That’s a great idea jerseygirl, we get home grown veggies from my in laws we feed her and we grow some kale. Unfortunately, living in a townhouse limits the amount we can grow. She is in the process of joining a group of 4 so it would be hard to just give her the organic veggies. Senior bunnies are so adorable, even if they take a bit more work, they are definitely worth it!

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