Experience with young bunny and snuffles

[loothi and bloo]

Hi All. 

My foster of about 11 or 12 weeks’ old has been sneezing a lot. It happens about every ten minutes when she’s being active. I swapped litter from Oxbox Eco-straw to Yesterdays News, with no change. Took her to the vet at the city shelter, who prescribed Baytril for 7 days. Potential pasturella upper respiratory infection. The vet didn’t offer a culture test. 

I just want to make sure I’m doing everything right.. 

So, the house, carpet and cage are kept pristine.

I could change her hay although it’s Oxbow brand Timothy and of such high quality I’d be surprised if there is any dust at all to irritate her. Her pellets aren’t dusty either – Oxbow Essentials young rabbit. She also sneezes when away from her cage.

She’s just had dose day 3 and doesn’t seem to be improving, nor getting worse. 

I had a snuffles bunny years before and it was a bit heartbreaking although it didn’t kill him, and the sound probably upset me more than him. My old vet (for my rainbow bridge bunny) was quite defeatist about URI, and we didn’t go down the culture test, alternative antibiotic route. With such a young bunny, I’d love to nip it in the bud if it is indeed a snuffles condition.

Any advice out there from snuffles (or allergy) wins?

Thanks

~loothi

[ChesnutKC]

When I first got my baby bunny, March, she sneezed ALL the time. She would stick her head into things or kick up dirt and dust while running around, but nothing ever came from it. She never got sick or anything and now she’s a very healthy bunny of a year and a half. So maybe the young ones are just much more prone to dust. Check her eating and bathroom habits to see if they change at all, if not, then it may just be temporary.

[Sr. Melangell]

Olly is 3 years old and has a lot of allergies like me, we can’t have sawdust, so Olly has baby blankets, I thought it was Snuffles and rushed him to the vet to find that it is allergies, each time he sneezes I say its going to be OK, he does sneeze when he has fresh hay, he sneezes after he has been running around and he does sneeze if I have managed to groom him, he also sneezes if he is nervous, his eyes were red last summer and the vet checked him over and said it was hay fever and there was nothing really he could give him, he does sneeze a lot sometimes and has a lot of mucous on his nose, sometimes he sounds like a Pekingese dog. (Like how those Chinese dogs sound when they bark.) But after he is fine, no more sneezing and he goes back to what he is doing, I don’t know about Snuffles, I’ve never had a rabbit that has had it, but I have noticed if I give Olly a good clean out, a fresh blanket washed in baby washing powder and baby fabric conditioner and then a hay cookie (Like a little bale o hay tightly compressed, he isn’t too bad, but normal hay and he sneezes, one of the Moderators like bam or BB or LittlePuyTail might know more about Snuffles, also what might help your bunny it is an allergy, it might just be a bunny with hay fever, we can get it all tear round, funny enough I had it over Christmas, I’m in England, so it maybe possible you just have a sneezing bunny, but when a bunny sneezes all the dust comes out, like when we sneeze, if it is just that, you’ll get used to it, like me and Olly, I just say. “Oh dear not again.” When he stops I ask if he is better now, I hope it all works out and isn’t anything bad ,

[loothi and bloo]

Thanks, I might be over-worrying. One nice thing, she likes the baytril from the syringe, so I can just feed it to her without fuss, and she laps it up. Must be sweet I guess.

[MoxieMeadows]

Hello! I’m just going to explain my situation with my bun (now 2 1/2 years old), in hopes maybe you’ll be able to get some information/insight.

Moxie is a French angora rabbit whom I purchased from a breeder (not any shelters close and I wasn’t aware there even were rescues who had buns) the day she turned 8 weeks, I was so excited! She developed her sneezing a little over a year old. I took her to the vets and they didn’t offer a culture. They prescribed me 21 days (3 weeks) of baytril. It worked an the sneezing and discharge from her nose COMPLETELY went away (I noticed an improvement at about 2 weeks). But sadly, after about a week off of the meds her sneezing and nasal discharge came back. So the vets gave us another 2 weeks of baytril. It didn’t work. So back to the vets we went. The vets flea treated her with revolution and wormed her and gave her a shot (I don’t remember what it was called. I think it was a booster of some sort). No improvement.
So Moxie had to be off all meds for nearly 3 weeks so all the meds could get out of her body so we could get an accurate culture. So Moxie went for a culture, trachea wash and cytology. The cytology was “insufficient” (which is not uncommon). So that gave us no information. The cytology said that there was inflammation (associated with worms and allergies, but she had been wormed). There was also Squamous cells (which were normal, but the vets called and said they weren’t and could be Carcinoma, a skin and lung cancer. So that was a HUGE scare. I cried for several days until the report came in the mail straight from the lab!) and it also showed a bacteria associated with pastuerella (Snuffles).

Moxie was then put on baytril for another 3 weeks (so 8 weeks in total!), which did nothing. Nothing the vets did helped us. I was able to make practically all of her sneezing go away by keeping stuff VERY clean, regularly washing blankets, toys. Expanding her space so that her hay and food and litterbox was several feet away from her play area and her sleeping area. I also stopped wearing perfumes, lotions, ect. in her (my bedroom) room. Other stuff to keep away from them is nail polish/air fresheners. I then keep a large window open (that is RIGHT next to her area) for ventilation and fresh air. I don’t have one, but an air purifier would be great.

So here’s all that condensed for ya:
Pastuerella is a hard thing to diagnose, since cultures are often insufficient, and MOST rabbits actually have the bacteria associated with Pasteurella in their nasal passages anyway! Even if your bun does end up having snuffles, one of the most important thing you can do for him is to keep his area VERY clean, have ventilation or an air purifier, eliminate allergens. You can even mist a serving of hay before you give it to your bun to make the dust go away. Just some tips.
I wish you lots of luck!!

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