True or False?

[Sr. Melangell]

All vets know about rabbits?

Well I don’t think so.

Having an ongoing argument here with my carer, he said that all vets are qualified to treat rabbits and rabbits are the same as cats and rabbits are never nervous, I know rabbits are related to the cat in some way but are very different as cats eat meat and if a cat falls it lands on their feet a rabbit doesn’t, rabbit teeth grow continuously a cats tooth doesn’t, the tooth drops out of a cats mouth if it breaks, a rabbits has to be surgically moved.

[Bam]

I suppose all vets have some sort of basic training in rabbit medicine, but what you need is a vet that’s specialized in exotics (even if we don’t normally think of rabbits as being extremely exotic, they are cathegorized as such). Most vets deal with cats and dogs all day long all their careers, and that’s where the huge demand (=money) is.

So I don’t think it’s true all vets are good at treating bunnies. Hopefully they know this and will refer you someplace else.

[Sindri]

That’s a big false. Not all vets are certified to treat rabbits. I also could only find one vet to care for mine and she is located in another state. I am lucky it only takes about 40 minutes to get there but she is a very experienced with rabbits. Rabbits are definitely not like cats or dogs. If you can please try and find another vet to go to. I searched the web and then actually sat down and called around and found mine.

[Eepster]

Huge false.

Rabbits are actually more closely related to humans than to cats.

[LoveChaCha]

Wow, big false! Most vets have no idea how to care for rabbits, and usually treat them as they would a dog or cat. When I hear someone is a new bunny parent, I tell them to look at house rabbit society and see if there is a rabbit qualified vet nearby. I don’t trust most vets when it comes to rabbit care. Koucha bun sees 2 vets, one that is local and is HRS recommended and has expertise on modern vet medicine, holistic, and training in animal physical therapy. The other is an exotic specialist/HRS recommended guy in Seattle. I trust both of them as they have years of training and experience with rabbits.

[LittlePuffyTail]

I had a sweet little lop named Velvet about 10 years ago. The only vet that was willing to see a rabbit told me to give her pineapple juice and mineral oil for her stasis. She died the next day. This was before I was experienced with rabbit illnesses. But I knew that didn’t seem like enough but the vet said she knew about rabbits so I trusted her. Had the vet done a proper, more aggressive treatment, Velvet most likely would not have died.

[MeketatenBun]

Super false. My high school boyfriend had a dad who was/is a vet. He swore up and down he knew how to care for rabbits. When my first bunny broke her back, she was getting better in his care and then sudden “took a turn for the worse”. I got a new bunny, Meki, a few months later and he gave her a check up and told me he knew how to do spays for her. The relationship wasn’t going well, though, and I broke up with that boyfriend before Meki was old enough, but even so, I had a gut feeling telling me not to let him do it.

Maybe four years later, I learned through a friend who had a friend working at the vet clinic at the time tell him once “That vet is awful. There was a rabbit with a broken back there once and he had no idea what to do with it. Put it in a huge cage where it had to move to reach it’s water, etc.”

So needless to say, I don’t recommend that vet to anyone with a small pet. He knew what he was doing with cats and dogs, but because of him I’ve become VERY skeptical of vets that say they’re good with exotics but aren’t registered with any organization for small animals.

[Bam]

Eepster, I just had to look that up, it’s 91 million years since bunnies and humans had their last common ancestor and its 97 millon years since cats and rabbits (felinae and lagomorpha) had their last common ancester! Ha! Cool! 97,5 mill years between dogs (canis) and lagomorphs! http://www.timetree.org/

It can be tricky to find a good vet. I’m in luck because I live where I live. I can take my bunnies to the same place I take my dog, because they have lots of bunny competence. I tried another vet first, but they said they only treat cats and dogs and that’s great, they didn’t pretend to know about bunnies.

We also have a specialist referral bird- and -bunny clinic just 60 km from here in case sth really difficult should turn up. But I know this is not how it is everywhere. I like to think that vets in GB are very competent, but that’s just an impression I get from tv-shows and from a few MOOCs I’ve taken from Edinburgh uni.

[kirstyol]

The impression I get is that it very much depends on where you live. In America it seems that its actually quite difficult to find a vet that knows about rabbits, whereas here in the UK it seems most vets have at least some rabbit knowledge. My vets is part of a large chain who are all small animal specialists which is why I chose them but before I made my decision I called a few other places and they all said they would see rabbits and had experience treating them. I also have a 2 year old hamster so it was super important to me that we found somewhere that specialises in small animals, not just somewhere that would be willing to see them.

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