Broken leg

[Amy]

Hi,

looking for advice or past experience. Yesterday my 10 week old female mink lip rabbit broke her back right femur. Vet said 3 options are amputate, operate and fix it or put her to sleep. The first 2 options are incredibly expensive. I was just wondering if there was another option and maybe letting it heal by itself and limit her movement? She has pain meds and this morning is eating and drinking but looking a bit sad that she can’t be hopping around.

and advice welcome.

[LBJ10]

She’s so young. Broken bones tend to heal quickly in young rabbits. Unfortunately, I’m not sure how well a splint would work on the femur. Did you talk to the vet about trying to support the bone externally?

[Amy]

Not in depth no, she didn’t give that as an option.

[LBJ10]

I know there have been members on the forum in the past where their bunny had a broken leg. These bunnies received a cast/splint and were kept in a confined area. I don’t recall any of the cases being a femur though. Being so high up on the leg, I think it would be hard to set it correctly. This may be why the vet suggested surgery.

[Hazel]

Poor thing, I’m sorry. 🙁  Agree with LBJ, this kind of break would be difficult to set properly without surgery. Assuming the surgery goes smoothly, she should heal quite well given her age, so it’s mainly a money issue. Some vets are willing to do a payment plan, maybe that would be an option? I wouldn’t go for the amputation, her odds of recovering from that would be lower and there really is no reason why the leg couldn’t be saved as far as I can tell.

[Bam]

I’m very sorry this happened to you and your bun. Iremember one case here with an elderly bun who broke her femur. They were about to have it pinned, but the bone started healing on it’s own, so they never needed the surgery. I cant say what that break looked like, though. For it to heal spontaneously the two pieces were probably correctly aligned, which they are not in your picture.

 

[Peanutthebunny]

is your rabbit free roam or in an ex-pen

if you free roam your bunny put her in a puppy exercise pen just so she doesn’t hurt the leg anymore or maybe sit with for about 1-2 hours a day just sit their pat her it’ll calm her down

I’ve never owned a rabbit but have done loads of research

[jerseygirl]

I hope she is managing okay.

Do you have a veterinary teaching hospital near you?  You might want to enquire about surgery there as it can sometimes be more affordable. The woman I adopted a rabbit from told me they did this with their 1st rabbit. It came into a clinic as a baby with a broken leg. The clinic was going to euthanise it but this couple took the bunny on and took it to a teaching clinic. The vets there were able to pin and plate the leg and used it as a teaching case.

 

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