Rabbit Fight, Broken Nail

[Marsh]

I accidentally left the area between where my sister keeps her rabbit (Minty) and I keep my rabbit (Archie) unblocked, and they got into a fight. Luckily my sister saw almost right away, but her rabbit (while being very sweet with humans and children) is very aggressive where other rabbits are involved. Minty is completely uninjured, not fazed in the slightest, and is currently calmly eating hay. I’m not worried about her at all.

Archie on the other hand is missing several large tufts of fur that Minty tore out, and has a broken nail. This happened around 15 minutes ago. The nail was bleeding slowly but still attached by a thread, so I used the nail clippers to clip it off completely because I figured it would hurt worse if it got ripped off. He isn’t bleeding anywhere else. However, he also isn’t eating any banana when it is offered (which he usually goes wild for), nor is he eating any hay. I’m going to try feeding him every half an hour. It is Sunday where I live, so the vet is closed, and unless I can’t get him to eat within a few hours I’m not going to take him tonight.

Has anyone had this happen before? Presuming he does start eating again and all the bleeding stops, should I still book him an appointment just to be safe?

Also, I’m feeling extremely guilty. I’ve had him for over a year now and he’s never been injured, aside from the one time he got into a bag of jelly beans, which was terrifying but turned out okay in the end. I was just reorganizing things and was so focused on what I was doing that it didn’t even occur to me that I might be opening up the area to them.

[Wick & Fable]

The cautionary approach would be to take both rabbits to the vet for a thorough physical exam– sometimes things can be easily missed w/ all their fur and fluff, and also a very common mechanism for rabbits is to act “normal” when they are injured (personally one of my rabbits broke his toe, literally two pieces of bone, and acted completely “normal”, aside from holding up that paw).

That being said, if both eventually resume eating and being active as normal w/ no other signs of discomfort, it is most likely not an emergency at all to see a vet immediately. I’d monitor both rabbits just in case.

The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.

[DanaNM]

Poor Archie. 🙁 Don’t beat yourself up too much, accidents happen sometimes. Of course it would be good to add an extra fence to be sure this doesn’t happen again. It’s very fortunate someone was there to separate them right away.

The broken nail will likely heal fine, just be sure the bleeding stopped and monitor for signs of infection. Check him over very thoroughly for broken skin. All that fur can hide injuries very well. Lots of fur pulled can make things look awful but sometimes that’s all that happened.

The not eating is worrisome, but it’s likely because all of this just happened. I would give him a calm quiet place to rest and check back in an hour or so.

A check up at the vet isn’t a bad idea, but if he starts eating you don’t need to go to the ER.

I see that this happened yesterday, how is he doing today?

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[LBJ10]

Yes, how is he doing now? I imagine the not eating was because he was upset/stressed from the fight. Hopefully some quiet time was all he needed.

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