Bunny behaves differently,shakes head and has hot ears!! Please help!!

[meobunny]

Hello everyone. Eventhough I am a regular visitor of the forum I have just registered in order to ask you if anyone of you can help me according my bunny. My bunny is almost 2 years old and she is a lionhead with white fur and red eyes. I had her 2 years now and I feel like she is my little baby. I always manage to spend a lot of time with her in order to play and make sure that she is as happy as she can be. But the last few days I noticed some changes on my bunny. She is not into the mood of playing with me and she is not coming next to me to lick me as she always does. She lies on the floor and resting all the time, and she constantly shakes her head back and front and she looks like her head is vibrating. Also I have noticed that her nose is also shaking all the time and her ears are hotter than usual. She is still eating, pooping and urinating normally. I would also like to inform you that the last 2 weeks the temperature here in my country is between 38-43 degrees of Celcius. I manage to provide her with a frozen bottle and she is also an indoor bunny. I would also like to add  that 2 weeks ago my 4 year old guinea pig has died from cancer and I was in extreme depression and sadness. They were living in separate cages and were not near each other. I don’t know if my bunny feels sad after the guinea pig death. Eventhough I was and I still am in depression from the loss of my piggy I never neglected my bunny and I still play with her and spend most of my time to make sure that she is happy. Unfortunately here in my country we don’t have vets that are experienced on bunnies and exotic animals and I am afraid to take her to one of them. Please if you could help me according my bunny’s symptoms I would be grateful. I will not stand it if I will loose her also from my life. Do you believe it is because of the heat? I would do anything to help my baby. Sorry for my bad english and thank you in advamce

[LongEaredLions]

I am so sorry for the loss of your Guinea pig.
38-43 Celsius is very hot for a bunny. I assume indoors is cooler? What temperature is the room where she lives? The symptoms she is experiencing could be several things, but due to the heat I would be inclined to suggest heatstroke. I would try to cool her off as much as you can-if you have air conditioning or a fan, turn it on in her room. Add more frozen water bottles, or ceramic tiles/bricks. Try to encourage water consumption, add ice cubes into her water and change often, and provide cool veggies with high water content such as cucumber. Wet the ears with cool water to help her cool herself off.
If there is any way you can get her to a vet, even an inexperienced one, they may be able to aid you with the cooling process.
Good luck!

[Bam]

I’m sorry that you lost your guinea-pig.

I agree with LEL, buns don’t cope well with heat. They primarily thermoregulate via their ears, so it makes sense her ears are hot. Cooling them with water on a cloth could go a long way, the bun sends out warm blood to the ears to cool it but it won’t help if the ambient air is as hot as the bun.

A fan with a wet towel on it is also good for hyperthermia. And you can spray her lightly and very, very gently with water, just a mist. Serve her greens soaking wet, but don’t give her too much of it at any one time because it goes bad quickly when it’s hot. Frozen water bottles are of course great as long as she has enough space so she can move away from them if she doesn’t want them.

[meobunny]

Thank you so much for your reply and all the information you provided to me. The room where she lives had a temperature of 31-33 degrees of Celcium. After your reply I have followed all the advice and I have opened the air conditioning and also wet her ears will cool water several times. I have also offered her wet veggies and put her a larger bottle with iced water in her cage. I am extremely happy to see that right after putting the air conditioning and managed to lower her temperature she stopped shaking so much her head and her ears are not as hot as they were yesterday. She also stopped shaking her mouth. The only thing I have noticed is that she is grooming herself more often then last days. But except from this she looks totally fine now and she eats normally, poops and pees. I don’t know how to thank you for the advice. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I had a very hard time the last month since the death of my guinea pig and I cannot stand loosing my bunny too. She is my everything. I would definitely take her to the vet but unfortunately here in my country the vets are only experienced on cats and dogs. My guinea pig died because after an operation that the vet made to her he has given her antibiotics that she couldn’t stand and she died. After that incident I feel very uncomfortable and scared to take my bunny to the vet again.

[meobunny]

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your advice and information according my bunny’s symptoms. I have followed the advice of both of you and I am so happy to see that today my bunny is extremely better and the symptoms have stopped. I have wet her ears with cool water, opened the air conditioning and also gave her wet veggies and put larger bottle of ice in her cage. From the time I have opened the air conditioning and managed to lower her temperature, the head skaking and the mouth shaking stopped and also her ears are not as hot anymore. I am having the air conditioning all day today in order to make sure that she will not feel hot again. I was very scared to see her in this way and I feel so happy to find this amazing forum where people are trying to help bunny owners. I don’t know how much I could thank you for the reply. I am grateful!! 

[Bam]

I’m so glad she seems to be doing so much better! Yay!

[LongEaredLions]

This is fantastic news! So glad your bunny is alright now.

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