For about half a year.

He initially got sick back in February and has gone to several vets since then. About a month ago (maybe a little more than that) did the vet say the infection was gone and that he could go off medication. He was still sniffling but it was becoming less and less each day and otherwise he was doing wonderful until yesterday.

I know there’s was the chance the infection was just put under control but not 100% gone and could come back :S

It’s been less than 6 hours since he willingly ate something (i gave him a bit of cilanto and he happily ate it up) it’s only been about 3 hours since he started hiding in his cage and I only tried feeding him a treat about 20 minutes ago. He should be alright for another 12h until i can hopefully get help I think? ;___; I called my sister but she hasn’t got back to me…

Technically right now is his “down time” or the period he usually rests and gets some sleep… so he doesn’t eat a lot during this time… but he will usually still accept treats. He did seem interested in it — when i put it in his cage he sought it out, picked it up in his mouth and dropped it. He didn’t make an attempt to eat it after that.

A little update:

So his sneezing has mostly calmed down, there’s still the rattling sound in his breathing but it’s only heard when he moves around? And it’s also not as loud as it was earlier.

He’s still breathing relatively fast. I’m not 100% certain because i dare not take his temperature and further stress him out but it felt as though his body temperature might be dropping a bit so i put a heat pad in his cage… his ears aren’t cold at least but when i put a few fingers under his belly, it doesn’t feel as hot as i remember it being.

I got him to eat a little bit by boiling some water and pouring it over a little bit of his pellets to make them expand. I then put a little bit of apple sauce in it. I tried to encourage him to feed himself but he will only eat it off my fingers.

My sister said she’d help me take him to the vet tomorrow but she’s being reluctant and won’t help me get him there as early as possible…

I took him to the emergency vet and the doctor says he’s likely come down with pneumonia

She gave me some metacam and some enrofloxacin. She said she would’ve liked to prescribe another antibiotic but without proper tests, it’s hard to pick the right one (I couldn’t afford much more anyway in the way of tests).

Thankfully she said it seems to be very mild at the moment and she was very happy that I kept a personal record of Milky’s medical history and recent vet visits over the past half year. She also said I did a very good job at keeping him stable until I could get him in to see her.

She did tell me to take him to a better vet than the one I’ve currently been seeing to get a second opinion and get proper tests done. My current vet refused to do a culture/sensitivity test to treat his URI and she said that it should have been the first thing he should of done and seemed like a bit of a red flag to her.

But he’s slowly seems to be doing a little better. His breathing rate has gone from 90-100 down to 70-90 breaths per min and he’s been accepting a little bit of food again and nibbling on a hay on his own. T_T I hope he continues to improve over night because I have to go to work tomorrow… ugh

Yeah :S I’m only worried because he was on enrofloxacin earlier this year and the vet also coupled it with doxycycline… even though it’s been a couple of months, i don’t know if the bacteria will be resistant to it ~__~

He’s still not eating on his own. The doctor said that if he’s not eating on his own by tomorrow to take him to his regular vet… I feel like tonight is going to be another sleepless night…. 

His breathing sounds good at least right now…  

He’s due for another course of medication in about 3 hours so fingers crossed!

He just sounds better though… i noticed he’s still kinda holding his head high in the air even though his breathing rate and the rattling sounds have decreased…

So Milky didn’t start eating on his own today so i contacted his regular vet and they told me they would see him.

Regular vet said the antibiotic was okay but asked to do a x-ray, which we did.

X-ray not only confirmed pneumonia but showed that Milky had a slight blockage in his intestines. He also had a tiny bladder stone and it looked like his bladder was full of sludge. So the doctor gave Milky a lot of sub-q fluid and told me to give him pineapple juice and lots of water. He also asked me to come back tomorrow to give more sub-q fluid to Milky.

I’m suspecting that the slight blockage in his intestines might be from hair. He’s been shedding as of lately and grooming despite not eating enough to keep his digestive track healthy enough to pass the hair out.

The sludge is probably because he hasn’t been drinking enough or moving around enough lately either… i’ve been trying to keep his gut moving by doing tummy massages but he’s never been one to sit still even when he’s healthy.

I’ve been trying to get him to drink more water but he’s being incredibly stubborn and isn’t taking to syringe feeding very well. I did set out a little water dish for him and i have seen him take little sips of it now and then but it’s not nearly enough. I just recently added some pineapple juice to it to give it some flavouring, hoping to entice him to drink more… i hope it works.

I did notice his poop size and shape look a little more normal since i started giving him a little pineapple juice? Before they looked kind crumbly and irregular shaped with a few small round ones… but now they’re usually around small-medium size and i haven’t seen any crumbly ones.

Good news is I saw him eat some hay today and he ate most of his oxbow supplement treat tablets. However he still has periods where he’s completely uninterested in food, even if it’s his favorite cilantro greens. He has still yet to touch his pellets but he did sniff and hover over them for a period today.

But his breathing rate has become more normal, usually between 60-80 breaths per minute. His temperature still feels a bit low for my liking but the vet said that as long as he’s not shivering, he should be fine. I’m still putting a heating pad in his cage so that if he wants to be warmer he can sit closer to it.

I still see him squinting a lot but I actually now think he’s just resting? I don’t know if bunnies are know to sleep in a upright sitting position. But he kinda wobbles a bit like someone nodding off when he is sitting like that (he only wobbles when it looks like he might be resting… otherwise when he’s alert there’s no shakiness).

In general his posture doesn’t look that uncomfortable anymore and i don’t see him tilt his nose up in the air as often. Still infrequent sneezing and the sounds in his chest are still generally present.

I’m only updating here because it only gives me some peace of mind. When I write everything out like this, I feel like I can see his progress a bit clearer. I’ve been so stressed out that I’ve hardly slept or eaten anything these past few days because I just feel so overwhelmed… but when I can put my observations in perspective, it helps see that he’s making little improvements.

I’d still feel a lot better if I saw him eating and drinking more on his own.

Thank you T_T I know in some forums people find it annoying when you keep bumping your topics back to the top… but to know that it’s not a bother is reassuring.

Yeah! Since I wrote those notes on my own personal record of Milky’s medical history to bring to the emergency vet, i realized they’re so incredibly useful not only for the doctor but for yourself as well. So I’ve decided to keep keeping track

Ahhh I see :S that would explain a lot then…. I’ve still had to syringe feed him water but he’s more accepting of it now since i added the flavoring! I was a little worried about the sugars in the pineapple actually since I know they can also feed the bad bacteria living in a bunny’s tummy and mess it up… but i also read that pineapple is good for balancing out electrolytes too. :S why must bunny tummy’s be so complicated…

I was actually kinda perplexed today because there hasn’t been that much discharge from his nose or eyes today when they day prior there was a fair amount of eye discharge and there was still discharge coming from his nose. I take it as a good sign that I don’t see any, but it is a bit curious that it just suddenly stop? I’ve even checked his paws and they’re clean even though i’ve seen Milky scrub his face after he sneezes a little.

I actually am wondering about critical care…. when I first received CC, it was from a vet i saw back in March who told me to give him 1/2 teaspoon of powder mixed with 1 teaspoon of water every 6 hours and I’ve continued following that.

But recently, I actually read the instructions on the package (the bag i initially received from the vet had a sticker covering the original instructions so i never read them before. i purchased a new bag off amazon a few months ago), it says to feed 3tbsp per kg of bunny and divided into 4-6 servings a day… do you think I’ve been giving him too little? He’s a dwarf and so he’s tiny and weighs less than a pound… which would be like 1/4 of a kg.

I tried doing the math… 1kg = 2.2lbs… 3tbps = 9 tsp = 18 1/2 tsp… so a rabbit weighing half a kg would get 9 1/2 tsp a day… when i went to the vet weighed Milky, it said he was about 0.82lbs… so he should get a little bit less than that right? Currently he’s getting about 4 servings of CC a day so I should probably at least increase that to 6 1/2 tsp servings a day… shouldn’t I? I’m not 100% sure….

Oh! I didn’t know they could sleep sitting up. I’ve only seen him sleep in loaf mode or laying stretched out on his side. I had read somewhere that squinting was often a sign of discomfort…. so I always assumed it was just that….

Thank you!! Milky really appreciates the vibes TuT

Ack I meant to post here sooner but it’s been a crazy week trying to catch up on everything I had to do after all the running around to the vets last weekend….

Ohh thank yo bam!! That’s very useful!

And thank you LittlePuffyTail!

Update wise, Milky has been doing a lot better!! He’s eating and drinking extremely well at least, eating and drinking more than he was previously. He doesn’t make any funny sounds when he’s breathing anymore either!! But he’s still sneezing infrequently, mostly clear discharge with a few chunks of white. Eyes will mostly be clear throughout the day but suddenly start tearing up randomly? Sometimes they’re really smelly tears too… but at least i haven’t seen any signs of pain or discomfort anymore.

Although there’s a bunch of good signs, Milky’s energy levels are still kinda low. He doesn’t like leaving his cage and when I take him out to either clean his cage or try and get him to do some exercise, all he wants to do is jump back in. He usually doesn’t like hanging around inside his cage much and usually prefers hanging out on top of my bed where he can get a good look of the surroundings… so I’m still kinda worried something is wrong. Especially when he still sorta sits at the back of his cage…

I don’t know if low energy levels for a couple weeks is normal for rabbits recovering from pneumonia or not? I can’t find much information about it… a lot of websites say that isolating the rabbit in a quiet, warm, stress free space and restricting their activities are essential for recovery and it can take 4-6 weeks for them to completely get better… I’ll have to take him back to the vet I guess….?

It’s strange cause sometimes his tears are smelly?? Sometimes it’s not smelly at all…. I’ve told the vet about it and they seemed unconcerned :/ i asked about either a a nasolacrimal duct flush or some kind of eye drops too… but he said it wasn’t necessary? >_< ugh… Yeah, he's still on antibiotics!

Okay thanks ;__; I hope that’s just the case and he’ll be back to his usual ankle nibbling habits soon…

Okay, so I woke up to Milky sitting in this weird posture? He usually sits up, alertly but i noticed him moving around where he’s mostly pressed his body close to the ground. It looks sort of like he’s comfortable except he was kinda crawling instead of hoping around?

He’s also suddenly eating less…. not interested in his treats either. I called the vet and they asked me to bring him in. I had some left over metacam from the emergency vet (i was supposed to only give it to him for 3-5 days but they gave me a big bottle) so i gave him a little bit of that….

His breathing looks and sounds fine… he was pooping and peeing. I’m wondering if he’s passing his kidney stone?? I heard most rabbit’s can’t pass them and usually have to get surgery :S

Darn, i just threw out my baby gas drops because they were expired, i haven’t gotten around to buying more… I still have two hours till i bring him in. I’ve been giving him tummy massages but his belly doesn’t feel especially bloated. I also listened to his tummy for a bit and didn’t hear any gurgling, just the sound of his heart and his breathing.

I did investigate and look at his under side, I noticed his male appendage was sticking out a little bit? I’ve never seen it stick out other than when he’s ‘excited’ so I thought that was a little strange…. I checked his litter and there doesn’t seem to be any blood…

I’ve been checking his litter every day looking for the bladder stone, but haven’t seen anything. From pictures, it looks like it might be the colour of his litter (dark grey-ish tan) so I might’ve missed it. But in the x ray, the diameter looked to be about 2-3mm so i imagine it’s large enough that if he’s passing it through his urethra, i’ll probably be pretty painful :S especially being as small as he is…

I’ve been feeding him extra water on top of everything he drinks on a daily basis. I’ve also been added cranberry extract to his water….

I kinda hope that this is all the bladder stone…

Took him to the vet, it turns out it was just a little gas!

Vet also took another x ray and did a urine test, his bladder has cleared up and he passed his bladder stone successfully!

The only thing I’m kind of ??? about is he told me to give Milky Amino B-plex (in bacon flavor)? Which is intended for dogs and cats… when I asked about giving Milky simethicone, the doctor told me not to because its dangerous/you can overdose? And that amino b-plex would help him start eating, help his immune system, give him additional nutrients he needs to recover and also help his bladder… but I can’t find any information on the use of it in rabbits.

A new issue that cropped up though is the vet took a look at his teeth and said that his back teeth were sharp? So I guess they have overgrown a bit since the last time he checked… He said he will fix them after Milky gets better.

But since I brought him home, he started to immediately drink and nibble on his hay again, so that’s a huge relief…

@Wick: I knew that bunny teeth don’t stop growing but i didn’t realized the back molars grew spurs!

@Q8bunny: Yeah, I thought simethicone was safe too  so I was kinda ??? about it. 

I looked up amino b-plex on google and only came up with 1 result by Rx… although drugs.com list two different versions of it. It said that the flavor was ‘natural’ one of of them so it made me ??? even more. 

Here’s the drugs.com pages for it here and here…

Yeah :S I did find this article, where it talks about amino acids with bunnies. It says essential amino acids for buns are lysine, methionine, valine, leucine, and isoleucine, which are all included in the amino b-plex… i didn’t know much about amino acids before this but reading about them, it seems like they’re pretty helpful.

He is eating it just fine! Although I’m not a big fan of the bacon flavor haha it gives him a bit of a dog breath. 

Ohhh! that’s good to know. I have seen a big difference in his energy level since i started giving it to him. He’s actually started wandering around outside his cage again where he’s getting some exercise, that’ll probably help with his gut mobility so that hopefully he doesn’t get gassy again. I can only guess that he got gassy in the first place because he wasn’t moving around a lot… He’s never gotten gassy before that and his diet hasn’t changed at all. 

That’s interesting about simethicone though, thank you for that information!

I’ve been thinking about his molar spurs, in February when I took him to the vet and they checked his teeth, they said they were fine. The only thing I did changed in that period was switching him from timothy hay to orchard grass hay because he wasn’t eating enough hay and didn’t seem to especially enjoy the timothy stuff… I know orchard grass hay is a bit softer than timothy hay, so that might’ve been the cause :S