Aging and sensitivities

[GlennTheLionhead]

Hey!

(update)

It’s been a while since I’ve posted and been on the forum – life has been increasingly busy during my post-grad. Hope everyone is well. Glenn and Nellie are doing well generally! For anyone that remembers the GI struggles, Nellie hasn’t had a stasis bout in a year!

(question)

I was looking for some advice on aging bunnies. Glenn is 9 years old in a few weeks . He was taken to the ER vet on the 26th of December as he seemed to have moderate audible breathing and a little chest flexing, as I have insurance I took him straight in to rule out an emergency, they confirmed likely a non urgent upper respiratory issue but not the cause, we suspected the issue was hay dust from the last of the bag the previous night, a couple days of metacam and he was back to normal… Tonight he has had slightly more audible breathing… Not anywhere near as bad, to the point I probably would not really have noticed had it not been for the recent previous episode, only a very gentle snore when he lies down and nothing otherwise, I’ve given metacam for inflammation. Again I recall the a bit off dust in his forage last night… Is it possible that with age he is now more sensitive to dust and more likely to get a little inflamed? We have ramped up to more frequent cleaning and now I’m thinking he may be too old tolerate the ends of forage and hay bags he once used to be…. No other symptoms, no discharge or sneezing etc, appearing as healthy as normal… What do others think can this type of thing be expected with age? Maybe just a coincidence.. I would have thought something like polyps/infection would have been more constant and obvious.

Thanks!

[BrunosMama]

Hey! Good to see you and glad the buns are generally doing well!

I’m wondering if the type of hay could have anything to do with it. Like if you have changed brands or something? I know some are more dusty/crumbly than others. I know different cuttings of Timothy hay have different dust levels as well.

I wonder, too, if he could be developing a hay allergy. My old bunny Hazel started having allergy symptoms with hay (little sneezes, mild watery eyes and occasional damp nose) and the symptoms didn’t start til a later age. The vet decided it was a hay allergy caused by the dust and suggested shaking off the hay really well before putting it in her box, or to try a different type of hay.

Hope you can get to the bottom of it! 🙂

[LBJ10]

Hello! Glad to see you. 🙂

It could be allergies, but I would definitely rule other things out before coming to that conclusion. URIs can present in different ways and they can become more likely as a bunny ages simply because their immune system isn’t as good as it once was. If it is the hay, you could try a different type and/or try to eliminate as much dust as possible. You can give bunnies Benadryl, but it tends to make them drowsy.

Something else to keep an eye on is heart issues. In older bunnies, it can present as audible or labored breathing. It can be intermediate too, not overly obviously all the time.

[GlennTheLionhead]

He’s be his normal self the last 24 hr aside from a very light snore while he was fast asleep that I noticed once today – I wonder if he could also be developing a bit of a snore, anyone noticed this in their buns before?

We have actually had a new type of hay for a couple months, they get some nice long stem green Timothy from a hay supplier and we also now supplement with a cheaper brand of Timothy hay just because they seem to go crazy for it – we got it once as a tie over when we ran out but they love it so much we decided to give them both kinds, it is a bit more dusty, I’ll look into siving it and see if it helps.

He has a check up with his rabbit savvy vet this week so I will mention it them, though the vet is usually reluctant to preform exams that require sedation without more obvious symptoms, for example we are encouraged to moniter weight fluctuations rather blood tests/CT for keeping an eye on Nellie’s kidneys now she’s on daily metacam. Which I suppose is understandable due to age and the stressy nature of bunnies – I’ll mention the possibility of heart or URI, see what they suggest and report back! It sure is never easy figuring out if something is minor or major with bunnies given they way they mask symptoms.

Thanks for the replies and insights both!

[LBJ10]

Yes, definitely let us know! How aggressive you want to be depends on a lot of factors. You definitely want to take their age and overall health, as well as how easily stressed they are into consideration. Sometimes it doesn’t hurt to, say, try some antibiotics just to see if there is improvement (as opposed to jumping into invasive tests right off the bat).

[GlennTheLionhead]

We went to a Exotics practice and saw a bunny specialist due to needing a new vaccination that we could not source from our regular rabbit savvy vet. A full thorough health check was carried out and the verdict was we have two healthy bunnies doing great for their age!

I will obviously keep an eye, we haven’t noticed any breathing stuff since but we are continuing to take steps to keep their environment free of as much dust and dusty hay as possible.

Thanks again for the help 😊

[LBJ10]

So glad to hear they are doing well!

[Bam]

I’m very hsppy to hear they’re in good health and that you had them checked out!

[GlennTheLionhead]

Hey. I had another question and thought I’d ask here as its very related to the topic title but about Nellie… As you can see from previous she had a good health check with an exotics specialist who suggested both Glenn and Nellie were in very nice health for their age (no xrays or ultrasounds Ofcourse) Nellie is around 9 or 10, she does show her age a little and has arthritis medicated with one dose of daily meloxicom. I’ve notice as of recent months she’s sleeping more. She spends noticeably more time sleeping in hides than Glenn does, usually loafed. Not every day, sometimes she has very active days and is usually always bright and active in the morning but now in the evening she retreats to her hide periodically through the evening for 2 – 4 hours while Glenn his enjoying his ‘day’, still comes out and eats and runs excited for carrot tops but then back to sleep she goes. She does sometimes look a bit stiff and if it’s before 8 pm she might refuse to come out but will still eat food brought to her.

I will say around 10 pm she is usually alert and active for a few hours and flops relaxed in the open and again it’s not every night, but occasionally.

Side note – she gets meds at 7 pm so I would usually expect any potential lingering pain to be gone by 8/9 pm.

Is this normal aging do you think? I don’t have previous experience of aging rabbits. Thanks.

[LBJ10]

My boy slept a lot as he got older. It was always so sweet seeing him passed out in the hay. I think some of it can be age-related, but if you think Nellie needs a higher dose of pain meds then you could look into that to see if that changes anything.

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