Hello all!
I have some questions about revelations made at the vet’s today, but I’d like to give a bit of back story first so you can understand my rabbits (and my) situation.
I have two rabbits, I think they’re about 4.5 months old now and they’re probably New Zealands mixed with something. They weigh just over two pounds each and are adorable. When I got them about 2.5 months ago my friend (who had raised rabbits for 4H) helped me sex them. The white one was a girl and we named her Betty and the black one was a boy, named Dupree.
I built Betty and Dupree a 3 story bunny condo with NIC cubes and used two of the pieces to form a barrier between the top two split levels and the bottom level. For the last two months I have rotated them between the levels at every cage cleaning (~3 days). It’s not enough space when it’s split in half and because they needed to exercise separately they each only got 2-3 hours out a day, which is why I’ve been so excited to get them fixed and back together once Betty heals from her spay.
In the mean time, Dupree developed a jaw abscess which burst once while he was on Baytril and healed over. Then he had surgery to remove some of the pus and got an x-ray. Apparently the infection is in the bone but the vet mentioned nothing about teeth. So now he’s on weekly Pen-G injections for 8-10 weeks with a mid week check up. We’ve done about 3 of these and he takes ’em like a champ and gets a raisin afterward. A small pocket of more fluid pus moved to the front (where it had popped the 1st time) and burst again. I cleaned it up the best I could and it closed up again after a couple days. During this whole deal he’s eaten consistently and doesn’t seem to have troubles, though he favored one side of his mouth while chewing occasionally, I had attributed it to swelling, because it was always when his abscess was at its largest.
So, that’s where we were when fixin’ day rolled around.
I got a phone call soon after dropping them off. Turns out Betty is a boy! His testicles are much smaller than Dupree’s which would be why I never felt them while scooping him up, unlike I had with Dupree.During this phone call the vet also suggested reopening the abscess and setting it up so I could keep it open and flush it, which I readily agreed to.
I got another phone call about 2 hours later about Dupree, this one more serious. The vet had checked his teeth while he was under. Apparently one of his molars has broken. It’s about half the size of the other, healthy one and brown. She said the prognosis was poor, though I don’t know if she meant for recovery, future quality of life or survival. She recommended getting him looked at by his regular vet sooner than originally planned and removing the molar. (They’re not at their regular vet because the spay/neuter is through a low-income charity). Their regular vet is familiar with rabbit dentistry.
I’ll be picking them up in about 4 hours.
After all of these phone calls I have some questions.
- Does the fact that they’re both males mean I should expect problems with cohabitation? They got along well before I separated them and have had constant sniff access the last 2 months. I’ve let them snuggle a couple of times with adult supervision and removed them the second Dupree showed any interest in Betty (apparently he thought Betty was a girl as well).
- How long should I keep them separate to recover? Since half of the enclosure is split level, should I make sure they can’t hop up and down between levels until they’ve recovered?
- What is it like caring for a rabbit that has had a molar removed? Will he need to eat mush for the rest of his life or just during recovery? I understand there are always risks with these things, but I really don’t understand what it means when the vet says “prognosis looks poor”. I can handle routine care or molar grindings if I have to, but are they talking about survival/quality of life?
- If any of you have been through this, what did it cost? Molar removal surgery and follow up grindings? I know prices vary, but I have a limited income and want to start pre-planning my saving strategy.
- I’ve been looking into alternative medicine to supplement Dupree’s treatment. I’ve found that echinacea can support immune systems. Has anyone tried this before? Where do you buy your echinacea and what form is it in? What about bunny acupuncture? His regular vet is learning acupuncture and has offered me free acupuncture treatment if I’ll let him be a guinea pig, it doesn’t seem like it could do any harm.
Sorry, I know that was a lot, I just got hit by a lot of new info at once. Any advice is appreciated. I plan on asking these questions to the vet when I pick my boys up and when I speak to their regular vet, but I wanted to hear from people who’ve dealt with similar situations.
BTW, Betty is staying Betty. I don’t see that it makes a difference and he’s my little sugarloaf, I couldn’t change his name now!
PS: I just realized this is in the wrong section, but I don’t know how to move it…
;”>;”>;”>;”>;”>;”>;”>