Bunny is suddenly dragging one leg???

[LittleWhiteRex]

Hello all,

My family and I are leaving tomorrow morning and will not return for a week. This is something I cannot change unless I set fire to the house or something dire like that.

Simultaneously, a rabbit we’re keeping for my mom (we’ve had him for about a year so far; he’s not really ours though) ended up hurting his leg. He was fine yesterday, but when I went to feed him this afternoon, he was half-dragging one of his hind legs; he seems to have some control over it, but not a lot. He doesn’t react at all when I handle it.

Some context and potential causes:

-He’s about 4 years old and unfixed

-He had a wire-bottomed cage, I suspect he might have caught his foot on that but that’s up to you all to advise me. (We put cardboard over the bottom of the cage to prevent that from happening again, if at all)

-We don’t have a regular vet because we live in the middle of nowhere and the only vets are cat/dog ones. Also, he was forced onto us when we didn’t expect it… TL;DR is that we don’t have a vet we can take him to, not that we have the time. By the time this post is read, the closest thing I can do is call a vet and get advice, but I don’t know what good that would do.

-Someone will be feeding him while we’re gone, so maybe they can do some basic things?

-He had a little scare this morning when a stray cat wandered close to the house and might have hurt himself then?

-If anyone knows of any rabbit vets to call in the NE Ohio area – preferably close to Mentor/Willoughby – that would be a lifesaver

Literally so much is happening right now to prevent me from doing anything about this problem and I’m kind of freaking out about it. Though I know this won’t be replied to for at least a couple of days… what to do???

[Roberta]

You really need to get a vet to look at it. Can you get the bunny to a vet and ask the person who will be feeding him to pick him up and take care of any mediactions ? Is the person who will be caring for him able to take him home and keep him in an indoor cage whilst you are away ? Maybe you could contact the vet and give them Credit Card details to cover the costs so the bunny sitter is not out of pocket or possibly find a vet that will board your bunny and treat the problem whilst you are away ?

[Roberta]

This link may help…. http://www.ohare.org/vets.htm
If you type vet, rabbit, exotic, ohio, willoughby into the google search it should give you some additional options

[Roberta]

Also this link goes to a another forum post with an extensive list of Ohio vets who treat rabbits. http://www.rabbitsonline.net/showthread.php?t=10099

[Eepster]

If you can get an exotic vet to see him great, but under the circumstances, if you can’t find one take him to any vet for an x-ray. For an injury like that, a regular vet would be OK if not ideal. A broken bone is a broken bone, whether it’s a cat or a bunny.

Also, as soon as possible, he should be off the wire flooring. It does tend to lead to injury. Check out our habitat section for ideas, and check information on litter training.

And Roberta’s idea of boarding him at the vet is great.  They can deal both with treating his injury and the bunny sitting at the same time. 

[Author]

Messages