Hi! This is my first post on the forum. Sorry if I’m posting this in the wrong place. A quick introduction – I’m Marie, living and studying in Ecuador with my year old lionhead, Casper.
Sorry to rush an introduction, but I’ve been worried about my bun lately.
He has a past of E.coli. He’s been treated several times with many different antibiotics, but it always seems to come back. The only symptom he ever shows is droppings containing an orange to dark red mucus on them, cecotropes mixed with hard droppings, or everything mixed together. This will happen at least once a week when the infection is “active”. It will go away for months – and then randomly come back, and I’ll treat him again.
Five weeks ago he had some mucus again, and I told my vet. He said he’d get something stronger. In the five weeks it took my vet to bring in the medication, he left mucus behind about once a week. Yesterday it finally got here. Not only was it NOT for rabbits, the dosage was also wrong. I haven’t spoken to my vet since. But I know exactly what he’s going to say – he’ll get something else. I do not have more weeks to wait for something that may not even work. I’ve decided to treat him with antibiotic from the past, because it’s truly the only thing that’s ever been effective.
As you may assume, we do not have rabbit savvy vets here. I have tried contacting every vet, and next I’m going to contact the “breeders” of my bun in the first place. The vet that treats my bun is a cat and dog vet.
He has had a slight change in behavior lately which is why I’m truly worried this time around. His cage has 4 floors, and the base – now he’s taken a liking to the base now that I’ve set up a nice bed down there. I’ll go in his cage to pet him and he will close his eyes and almost sleep. He’s very secretive about sleeping. But now, he’ll lay down with his eyes closed – I’ll even move him and he’ll allow it. He doesn’t seem very alert about the noise around him. He use to wake up instantly when seen by me or a loud noise. He’s never done this in the past. He is very comfortable with me and allows me to handle him and is very loving in general. But I doubt this is the case now. It’s almost as if he doesn’t care. I almost feel as if I could shake him while he’s in this position and he still wouldn’t care. However, as soon as he smells pellets or treats he’ll become alert again and start standing and sniffing.
Maybe I’m being too paranoid but this is the only thing out of the ordinary. When it’s play time he acts like himself again. He even continues to play with his toys on the other floors. Only when he is in his bed he acts lethargic, sometimes I’ll even see his jaw move. Basically – I’m just worried if he’s not feeling well or in pain?
I’ve tried to read everything I can online about E.coli but there isn’t a lot. I’ve tried different forums and so much research in general with no luck on helping him permanently. Sorry this was so long, thanks in advance!