Caring for blind bunny

[Darren]

Hi all,

Me and my girlfriend have eight bunnies, six of which were born in house (note: they were not bread neither for meat nor for sale). All the six survived and were healthy, something we were informed its rare as we were told that usually one in every three does not survive. At the sixth week, I realized one of the bunnies was grinding his teeth. The next morning, I visited the Vet were he couldn’t find anything wrong (good teeth, no eyes issues, no lumps etc..) so he just gave him Bio-Lapis and told us it would help with his digestive system just in case. 

On that day, we noted that our bunny became very lethargic and was not eating or drinking. So we decided to visit the Vet again. The Vet couldn’t find anything wrong again so he gave us the contact details of an exotic vet. When we visited the exotic vet, he also couldn’t find anything wrong but to be on the safe side, he gave him a drip, pain killers (Loxicom) and anti-biotics (Septrin) and told use to force feed him Critical Care. We did so but he was keeping on loosing weight and in a week went from 500g to weighing 400g. We went to the Vet again were he told us to continue with the pain killers and gave him an injection to help him getting his appetite back (sorry I don’t know what injection he gave him). 

After around two days, all of a sudden, he just went out of the lethargic state and slowly got his appetite back. Unfortunately, we realized that most probably, he went blind as he is constantly bumping on things when we leave him to roam freely. Although he gained his appetite back we found that he still has some difficulty to eat mainly because

1. He always searches for food by sniffing around (and also sniffing standing on his behind legs) but when he reaches his food, he tries to grab the food but continuously fails until we either aim it in his mouth or he looses hope of grabbing it.

2. When he eats, he lifts his head up and continue to stand up going on his back feet. Sometimes he also falls on his back. He does this every time not just occasionally.   

We also noted that although he stopped loosing weight, he is still around the 400g range. For information, we are currently feeding him Critical Care (around 50ml everyday) and a mix of spinach, parsley, mint, basil, apples, carrots and banana. I don’t know what else I could feed him as he wont eat pellets or hay unless we manually aim it in his mouth. 

Our Vet still don’t have any clue of what happened and how can we teach him again to eat on his own. We were hoping that someone could help us. 

N.B. He is also never drinking so it would also be very helpful if someone can tell us how we can teach him to search for water and drink. 

Thanks

[easter]

Awwwww that must be horrible…
You’re going to need to make his living place as quiet as possible and give him food that is light to pick up and give slowly in little piles so he isn’t overwhelmed by the smells and cannot find a place to pick up the food. The critical care sounds good but bad news about hay and pellets, maybe try grinding pellets and putting syringe? the hay you will have to replace with grass and give in the same place every time, once he knows where it is, you can start to semi dry to full dry slowly until he gets used to it.
As for water, make an official place like the grass, and use coconut water/plain fruit juice (some rabbits don’t drink if it’s fruit juice though) and take him over t the bowl and give the coconut water in a little jam lid or whatever you have that is shallow and round. He will hopefully realize where he can find it if you do this in the same place with a characteristic sound like “water”, once he knows that, you can take him there and say “water” and he will drink from the lid, and eventually the bowl
Good Luck!!!!!!
p.s : I’ve sent you a pm

[FlemishDad]

Also, neurological issues plus blindness is very suggestive of the very common bunny parasite E. Cuniculi. You might have your vet check for it, or maybe just go ahead and treat him – the meds are cheap and fairly safe.

[Darren]

Hi all,

Thanks for the suggestions.

@Easter: I have tried to make a mix of pallets with water and give through syringe but he didn’t like it. He now ended up being crazy about bananas. I gave him a bit more than recommended for rabbits since I know he has to gain weight but he was starting to refuse grass foods so I stopped giving him banana for now. At least, it looks like now he is finding and managing to grab his food more than he used to. Just need to make sure he eats enough. For drinking, I couldn’t find coconut water and knowing he goes crazy for banana, I just mixed a piece of banana in water and gave it to him. He managed to drink a bit (although, most of the time he was not coordinating well and was ending up with a wet nose and grooming himself).

@FlemishDad: That actually make sense. I have read abit about it since I have also seen the edge of his eye lid slightly red. Reading more about it looks like it can effect his brain and could make sense with the fact that he cannot lift his head up and ends up lifting on his behind legs to swallow. The vet already checked his eyes and said they look good but I will contact him again and see if he could just give me the meds for the parasite as my bunny is still very small to have a sample of his blood taken for testing.

[Author]

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