My bunny, Rucy, went on several different antibiotics (one after the other) when one didn’t seem to do job. Her situation was a little different -she did not have URI’s – she had jaw abscess issues, and they did a culture and found several different types of bacteria (some that were resistant to some of the antibiotics we had given her, which explained why one type of antibiotic may have worked for a while, but still allowed the other bacteria to flourish.

I don’t know if that is what is happening in your bunny’s case with a URI or not, but I think you need talk to you vet about what’s going on. Is he a rabbit-savvy vet that you trust?

Have you done a culture and sensitivity?

I have a rabbit with chronic URI’s that did the same thing at first; 2 weeks on Baytril were great, and then it all went downhill. Once we got the C&S back, it said that he was infected with Bordetella, as well as Pasteurella and that Baytril was not the right antibiotic for him. As well as giving us a list of what antibiotics would work best for him. We ended up going with Tetracycline, but Chloramphenicol was an option too.

Good topic mentioned here. One of my bunnies, Snicker, has an ongoing case of snuffles. I have spoken with vets over the phone, and have scheduled an appointment in two weeks. What is the most effective medicine to cure snuffles?

HappyHopperz, Snuffles is just a catch all term for an upper respiratory infection, it’s not the actual illness. The best way to find out what bacteria is causing your rabbit “snuffles” is to have a culture and sensitivity test to determine the bacteria and the best medicine to cure it.

Thank you @Sarita (:. My vet plans to do that test during our visit.

Chronic respiratory diseases in some rabbits remain just that- chronic. sometimes antibiotics just not seem to have much of an effect.. hard to culture these rabbits with lower respiratory tract diseases, where many of the causative organisms live (in the lungs).. without anesthetizing the rabbit and doing a tracheal/lung wash, a culture is just as likely to show an unrelated bacteria as the organism causing the problem… and even if you did manage to come up with the right bacteria on a culture, that does not mean you will be able to clear the infections… rabbit lungs seem pretty effective in walling off infections (creating chronic abscesses) and even long term antibiotics do not seem to clear those up. Sometimes these rabbits just need to be kept on long term antibiotics (e.g. for years sometimes)

Azithromycin is a great antibiotic for certain lung infections but it is not the only one or necessarily the best.. and few studies have been done on rabbits to determine not only what dose to use, but how long to use it for.. .it is used frequently in people but generally for a strict 5 day treatment period. Not sure why longer treatment is not recommended, but there is likely a good reason for that.. and using it longer in rabbits may be doing more harm than good for all I know.

Wow, both rare organisms! Both have been shown to be sensitive to sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim, so it’s definitely worth a shot.