Tick bite fever??

[Bambam]

The other day i found a little red tick on the floor of my bathroom (the bunnies hay is kept in the bathroom). I quickly too a tick and flea comb to the bunnies and didn’t find anything. But Pebbles (2 year old spayed female) has spent the whole day lying on her side and being very lethargic and wanting cuddles from me (abnormal for her). Am I being a paranoid mom or could she be very sick?? Do bunnies even get tick bite fever?? 

I will take her to the vet tomorrow as it is after hours now. just need something to put my mind at ease tonight or whether i should rush her through now

[Bam]

i don’t know exactly what type of ticks you have in South Africa, but generally a tick will not just bite, it will embed its mouth-parts into the bitten animals and execrete a form of cement that makes the tick very difficult to remove until it has had its fill i e a good blood-meal. If the tick you found was just little it perhaps hadn’t eaten yet?

Most warm-blooded animals can get Lyme disease but the symtomps generally takes several weeks to emerge. 

Relapsing tick fever has a week’s incubation period, so if the symptoms and the tick occurred at the same time that would not be it.  

There is a form of paralysis that can occur with tick-bite in sub-saharan Africa. But the progression of the paralysis stops as soon as the tick is removed and the patient then recovers.

(I did a MOOC in tropical parasitology some months ago given by Duke uni, that is my source of info)

A lethagic bunny makes me think more of GI stasis, unless she’s eating, drinking peeing and pooping normally that is. http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/ileus.html

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

Hmmm I can’t add anything to what Bam wrote-seems super knowledgeable! Thanks Bam!

Bambam -can you keep us posted?

[Bam]

How is your bunny doing, Bambam?

[Author]

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