I had to go out of town for three weeks (approx.) and I had a family member taking care of my two rabbits, Suho my adult rabbit and Tao my young rabbit. I left a list for the family member to follow which included when to change their litter boxes (I change them every two days). Well, when I got back last Thursday I immediately noticed that both rabbits had lost weight and Tao was extremely bony (She’s gaining the weight back now that she’s back in my care), and I also noticed that both rabbits were shedding fur. Suho is shedding for summer and Tao is losing her baby fur, so I didn’t think much of the fur clumps. 

That was until I was cuddling Suho later that Thursday night and started scratching around her butt. Her butt felt very sticky and wet like how your hair would feel if soda was poured on it and it was matted up. And the more I felt and looked the more my heart dropped, she had patches of missing fur and her skin was raw in those patches of missing fur. I checked Tao and found the same thing wrong. I brought it up to my family member and they confessed to me that they had not been using their paper litter in their litter boxes and that they had been keeping both rabbits in cages with wire and hard bottoms (switching the rabbits every three days or so). So, my poor babies had not only been sitting in their own urine and fecal matter but they had also been put into cages that hurt them (luckily no sore hocks on either of them).

I had to break down and give them both baths to wash their legs, tummies, and butts off. And they both had poop stuck in their fur that came off while in the bath. Tao, who is solid black mind you and all of her incoming fur is black, now has “bleached paws” from sitting in her own waste and has clumps of fur that keep coming out on her butt and back legs and paws. Suho, who is a mix of grays and some white, has “yellow paws” and the same missing fur problems in the same places.

Is there any remedies that won’t hurt them that can calm their skin and help their fur grow back? Because I feel so bad and feel like all of this is my fault for leaving them with someone so negligent who I thought would take good care of them for me. Like they don’t seem to be in pain just more on the irritated side and understandably won’t let me brush or pet their butts now. And the fur clumps just keep coming out and in two days it’ll be a week since I came back home.