It's been almost a year since I last posted on these forums! Sweep and I are doing well; I got her spayed about a month ago and she made a full recovery. Today, however, I had to take her to the vet as I discovered last night that in the space of five hours she had pulled out her fur and scratched/bitten through some of the skin on her hind leg. I had the e-collar left over from her spaying, so I put that on her overnight and took her to the vet.

They gave me a bottle of iodine to spray on her foot twice daily and told me to leave the collar on until the wound was healed. However, they didn't say anything about why she might have done such a thing and, of course, in my wild imagination I fear it's something like mites. Is that something the vet would have been able to see immediately?

They must think she's bored in the cage, because they also prescribed that she stay outside her cage. However, my apartment is far from totally rabbit proof so I can't leave her outside her cage while I sleep or while I'm at work. The best I can do is leave her in our bathroom.

What does the collective wisdom of the Binky Bunny forums think?

It could be nerve damage as well...I've seen this behavior happen with that.

Did the vet check her for mites or other parasites? I hope that she was given a once over, and that the vet didn't just guess at her being bored.

Could you set up an x-pen for her so that she is not caged so much? You could have a little box or house for her to run in and out of, along with some toys, phone books to rip, etc.

I hope that her leg will heal quickly.

At the moment I'm keeping her in the bathroom, which is small but doesn't have anything to injure herself on. She seemed happy with it overnight.

Woud mites and nerve damage cause other adverse behavior? Because apart from the injury she seems happy and is bounding around and getting into as much trouble as she usually does. I also read that nerve damage from surgeries don't usually show themselves more than a month after it took place, which it certainly is now. I guess it could be nerve damage from something else... Mites are a possibility but the vet did check the wound and the foot around it fairly thoroughly. I've also got a head cold at the moment so I didn't think to ask a lot of the pertinent questions...