Matted fur around chronic runny eyes

[TrioAGI]

Hi, guys, I was wondering if you had any advice for me…

We’ve had our girl-bunny Gorie for about eight months, and we recently adopted a little boy bunny, Alfred, that she got along with well during a few bunny-dates at a shelter. He’s a refugee from Hurricane Sandy. He’s a Lionhead, and he has a condition of chronic runny eyes. The shelter people and the vets assured us that once Gorie and Alfred were bonded that Gorie would begin to groom his eye, and it shouldn’t really be a problem for him anymore unless she developed some kind of health problem. We’ve had him for a little over two weeks, and luckily it only took a few days for the two to be happily bonded to one another, but… Gorie is still hesitant about grooming his eyes. She grooms his ears and around his face, but doesn’t really assert herself around the eye area so they’re still a little gunky. We clean him with a cotton ball and some saline solution daily, as recommended, but he still has some matted, tangled fur around his eyes (being a Lionhead) from his month or so at the shelter without being cleaned regularly, and his time outside after the hurricane. He’s very good about letting us touch his face, but it’s easy to get on his nerves once we start to untangle the hair, so I was wondering if there were any home remedies we could try, beside a warm wet cloth or the saline cotton ball, to make the process a little easier on him? I’m sure that once we get the fur untangled, we can just maintain the excess fluid from his tear ducts and it won’t get knotted up again, but the problem is getting to that point. 

Basically, my questions are these: 1) Should I be concerned that Gorie isn’t really cleaning his eyes yet? 

and 2) Does anyone have any advice for untangling fur, besides a warm wet cloth and saline on a cotton ball, as these are pretty ineffective? Also, please don’t suggest I cut the fur because it’s right on his face near his whiskers and his eyes. 

Thanks so much for any help you can give us! Gorie and Alfie thank you too!

Sara

[Roberta]

I don’t blame you for being wary of trying to trim near his eyes. They can toss their heads about and if you are not confident and injury could follow. The only thing I can suggest is to continue gently washing they eye area and possibly gently work around the area with something that will lift of the hair slowly like a rubber grooming cloth. It’s sounds like a job that is going to require time and patience…
Thankyou so much for adopting the little guy. So many people would pass him up because he wasn’t perfect.

[Deleted User]

I know that the rescue and the vets said to not be worried about his eye condition. However, are the vets you went to see attached to the rescue? It doesn’t hurt to take him in for a second opinion. I don’t really have any experience with trying to untangle hair around the eyes. But only the jaw, I let the matts work themselves out by brushing them with the curry brush I had and cut the really stubborn matts. I don’t really recommend cutting matts. However, with how feisty my girl is she won’t sit long enough for me to work out a matt with a matt splitter so I’m left with snipping the tangled messes.

[jerseygirl]

I agree, it would be worth seeking a second opinion to get to the cause of the problem. It might be eye injury, infection, blocked tear ducts, tooth root impinging on ducts, or chronic resp infection. With the latter, chronic infections flare up during times of stress and it sound like the little guy has certainly had some of that in recent times!

A couple questions: did the shelter (or yourselves) use wood based litters or bedding?
What hay has he been eating?
Is their habitat well ventilated?
Is his urine strong smelling at all?

I find just combing the wet gunk fur with a fine tooth flea comb works best for cleaning up.
I wouldn’t be too concerned that Gorie hasn’t taken to grooming his eyes yet. Their bond is fairy new and rabbits don’t always groom each other.

It sounds as if Alfie has landed in a nice home after his ordeals.

[LittlePuffyTail]

I would also seek the opinion of a vet. My Mini-Lop had a runny eye and matted fur around it for about a week and the vet found a scratch under his eyelid that needed to be treated.

[TrioAGI]

We have his whole medical history, and he has a chronic eye condition, which is the root of the teary eye problem, so we already know why he has runny eyes and there’s no cure, only maintenance like cleaning it out. Taking them to the vet is super scary and stressful for them because I live in the city and it’s noisy and cold, so I try to keep the vet visits as minimal as possible. Since we’ve been carting him around a lot recently and we have his medical history, I’m going to hold off bringing them to the vet.

To answer your questions, they’re free-range bunnies that live in the most well-ventillated room in our apartment with two windows, so that shouldn’t be a problem, and we use Yesterday’s News cat litter, which is paper-based (My bunny vet told me about it, and I recommend it!) and doesn’t really make dust or anything, and it looked like the shelter used Feline Pine, so maybe some woody chips in that. His urine smell isn’t any stronger than regular bunny urine smell. I’ve been sticking them to Timothy Hay for now. I usually switch Gorie between Orchard Grass and Timothy Hay and maybe a little Oat Hay, but since Alfie is new I’m keeping it simple. But, again, we know why the eyes are runny, my question is more about the maintenance.

Thanks for all your suggestions! I think I’ll try taking a comb to the fur in combination with the saline. Alfie and Gorie thank you as well!

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