Baby Rabbit with Coccida

[Harris,]

I just got an 8 week old holland lop.  I’ve had him for about 6 days now. He’s been pretty adventurous and very active for a few hours a day each day.  I’ve even seen him do binkys!  On the 4th day there was one sort of weird looking poop, like the kind he would eat.  Then on the 5th day he seemed a little less active, but would still occasionally run around like crazy.  I heard him grinding his teeth that day while laying down, so I took him to the vet.  Today I found out he has coccida, and I gave him his first dose of the meds.  I’ve moved his cage to the kitchen (he was partly on carpet before), so that I can now clean it really thoroughly daily.  I also switched him from a water bowl to a clip on water bottle, so that there’s no chance poop can get in it.  I’ve read a lot about how rabbits can die from this.  I was wondering if anyone could give me any sense of how he’ll do or what I can do to get him better faster.  He does still occasionally run around and isn’t totally lethargic.  He is still eating, drinking water, and I’ve only seen two poops that looked off. He still periodically grinds his teeth, but will also run around a little bit.  I’m hoping this means his infection isn’t too bad.  I did move him to the kitchen and now he has a bit less room to move around… He’s in a 3×2 ft dog kennel with 2×2 C&C attachment. Benefit of moving him here is that it can be sterilized better and more often. But it costs him room to move around (he had a 3×2 C&C attachement before that extended the cage out to 5×2, but now the C&C is perpandicular to the dog crate).  The vet said he should have smaller space now so I can sort of contain the spread of it better (so now floor play is just in the kitchen instead of kitchen & living room), but I’m worried that since he can’t run around wildly on the hardwood kitchen floors he’s going to be a little sadder now and maybe that will make it worse? 

[Sarita]

No being sadder won’t make it worse – it should be easily curable with the medication – did you get Albon?

[JackRabbit]

Both of my lops had coccidia when we got them. Yucky mushy poops. The meds took care of it. Clean his original area — steam clean carpet, ammonia for the rest (I always followed ammonia with a second cleaning with white vinegar/water mix. Same process when cleaning his new temporary area. Ammonia smell is hard on bunny noses so move him oyt of the area while cleaning (even if ypu have to put him in his carrier while you clean. Change his litter often so he doesn’t lay around in the poop and then groom. I got rid of any toys tgat couldn’t be cleaned (replaceable toilet paper rolls were it until the infection was gone!). And remember, the micro-cleaning won’t last forever!

[Harris,]

Yes, I got Albon.

Can I clean his wooden toys with the ammonia mix if I rinse well? I could take them away and give them back after.

Also I don’t have steam cleaner, so if I just keep him away from the carpet for the month will that be enough?

How often do you clean the cage with the ammonia? Daily? Twice a day?

[JackRabbit]

Coccidia can live up to a year. I got one of the shark pocket steam cleaners with a slide carpet attachment and used it after shampooing the carpet. Ask your vet for advice on that — in your case it might not be necessary (my buns had very high coccidia counts). I would toss the wooden toys just to be safe. I think mt husband cleaned the cage and litterbox every other day? Both of mine were sharing everything at the time so double the chance of reinfection. Our vet never suggested the “micro-cleaning”, but everything I read online suggested it and I did not want to deal with coccidia for an extended time or risk my third bunny getting it. Again, mine had mushy poops that they stepped in and sat in. Cleaning the material things was the easy part – cleaning two squirming baby buns who wanted no part of being cleaned up was the hard part!

[Harris,]

Okay thanks so much for sharing this! My vet talked about cleaning everything, but said to just leave things that can’t be cleaned. Luckily my bunny doesn’t seem to have the mushy poop part so at least I won’t have to clean that up! Thanks again!

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