Possible deaf bunny

[Emiline]

Let me start off with some background info:

My bunny is a female Holland lop, named McTwist, and she is about 5 1/2 years old. Last year she got very sick (my vet thinks it was EC) My vet didn’t think she was going to make it but after two separate rounds of EC treatment McTwist got a lot better and now she is back to normal and I could not be more grateful! But, I now think she might be deaf. I haven’t noticed any sudden changes so if she is deaf then that means she has probably been deaf for the past year at least. McTwist does not react to ANY noises. I’ve made really loud noises while she has been sleeping, I’ve yelled and banged on the furniture, but she doesn’t wake up or even move a muscle. She also freaks out and runs if I walk into the room quickly or get up in the middle of the night.

Overall she is a very happy bunny and if she is deaf it doesn’t seem to bother her, but my questions are: Do you guys think she is deaf? If she is deaf, do you guys think it was from the EC?

[LBJ10]

Deafness is actually relatively common in Holland lops. It seems to be genetic. They can be that way at birth or it can develop as they age. So if she is deaf, it may not be EC related at all.

My Leopold is deaf. We were pretty sure before, but the vet did take a look at him and said she believed he was deaf too. How we tested it: Placed Wooly in the other room so Leopold was alone. Stood in the doorway to the bunny room with a bag of treats. Held treat bag up on the other side of the wall so it wasn’t visible to Leopold. Proceeded to crinkle the bag to see if there was a reaction. Leopold carried on, completely oblivious. Wooly, on the other hand, came flying down the hallway from the other room looking for those treats.

Leopold does not react to noises at all. There can be loud bangs or strange noises, he seems oblivious. The new neighbors had fireworks for the 4th of July. They were very loud and very illegal. Leopold was still oblivious even though it sounded like a bomb going off. You can sneak up on Leopold quite easily. If he has his back to you, you can get right up to him and grab him. He never knew you were there. In fact, I walked right up to him when he was engrossed in grooming once. I clapped my hands right over his head, he didn’t react. Finally, when he was finishing up, he happened to glance up and see me standing over him. Boy did he look startled then because he had had no clue I was there! Hopefully that helps some.

[vanessa]

That could explain a lot for me. Lancelot was slow in warming up to Guin, although she was smitten early on. He acted startled regularly, and I wondered why. When Guin would hop up to him from out of sight, he would startle and thump. So to me, he seemed easily annoyed. He doesn’t react in the slightest when I turn the vacuum on, or commence any other loud noise. Not even a flinch. He doesn’t react to my voice either. Doesn’t react when I clap m hands to tell Guin “no”. I also suspect his vision isn’t the best. He has an impeccable sniffer. He finds his way around just fine, but he seems to sniff his way more than anything. When I bring him veggies, he sniffs his way to them. He seems to move just fine to larger objects (me, his litter box, his castle ramp etc, but sniffs his way to smaller things like his cat food dispenser ball, veggies, etc. When I use to give him apple cores, or grape halves, he would smell it as soon as I stepped into the room, and sniff and dart around trying to sniff his way to the fruit smell. One day I put a grape half 6 inches in front of his face, and another the same distance to Guin’s face. She pounced on her grape. He very crazily and in a desperate type fashion, sniffed his way up to the grape.

[Emiline]

Thank you both! This makes me feel a lot better!

[Author]

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