One of rabbits, an English Lop named TomTom, is injured and I want to make sure I do what’s needed to help him heal. He’s a grumpy bunny so it is hard to tell if he is feeling well or not due to him not being very active or cuddly to begin with. He is teeth clacking though so I know he’s not feeling good yet. He also has a head tilt from a prior ear infection that we are treating with physical therapy.
The story: Due to his digestive problems he has been getting sticky poop built up on his tail. My girlfriend and I did not realize this was happening because we are new bunny owners and he had black fur so the tail looked normal to us whenever we saw it. Once we noticed it we tried grooming him and pulling the poop off gently. It came off pretty easily but a lot of the fur around the base of his tail got pulled out. He didn’t really react and I didn’t use much force so I didn’t know until it was too late. This was two nights ago. The tail at that part was bright red but when I checked for blood there wasn’t a lot and it stopped pretty fast. I immediately dressed the wound with gauze and gauze tape(only touching the gauze and not his skin or fur). We kept an eye on him to make sure he was OK.
Yesterday morning we got up for work and he looked fine, was moving around still. I was stressed all day about it and left work a little early to go back and see him. He was acting fine but teeth clacking occasionally. The gauze was wet with urine though. When we took it off his skin was still a little red/darkpink but not as bright as before and there was zero sign of blood or where the blood could come from. We deliberated about redressing the tail and decided to so he had padding since it was still sore, although we are concerned with the urine soaking it again.
We would love and appreciate any advice you all have for how to help him heal, and how to keep him comfortable during the process. How long for the pain to stop, how long for the skin to return to normal, how long for the fur to grow back, and how to prevent this from happening again/better deal with it if it happens.
If you tell me not to dress the wound with gauze, which I feel like you will due to the urine getting on it as that doesn’t seem good, I would also appreciate any possible alternatives to ensure his comfort and no impact with the raw part of his tail. His pen-mate and bonded best friend Breeze takes care of him and helps keep his spirits up, but she can only do so much.
PS: He is still eating, drinking, and moving around. But he is clearly not comfortable.