Okay, so like another post I’ve made, I’ll try and give as much detail as possible so it’s easier for everyone to get the full story.
So, I have a 5 year old free roam, indoor bunn (he lives in my bedroom mainly) called Chibi.
Last Tuesday (25th)I got him a ‘foraging box’ from Wilkinsons (a UK store) and I gave it a good check for the ingredients and all seemed fine. Here’s a link to the actual product.
https://www.wilko.com/en-uk/wilko-small-animal-foraging-nibble-box-750g/p/0451238?nst=0&gclid=Cj0KCQjwxvbdBRC0ARIsAKmec9Ya1-gseZowWqlwTXabMEgOKlb1uFc_Ts4VrHu02K2IJeMSn3ZVP9kaAsPeEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
I gave that to him Tuesday afternoon.
It was quite dusty in the plastic it was wrapped in but I threw that out and just gave him the box as it was.
He loved it, and for him to immediately love something food related is unheard of. He looks at stuff for 6 months, ignores it completely and then suddenly decides it’s the best thing ever! lol
Tuesday evening he’s made this sound like a duck. I was literally about to fall asleep and I didn’t know what it was or really hear where it came from so went to sleep and thought no more of it. Obviously I now know it was Chibi.
Wednesday night (26th) He was making the duck noise again and sneezing. It was absolutely awful hearing that noise come from him! He was making the duck noise so much and it was stressing me so bad that I took him downstairs so I could sit with my Dad while we figured out what the hell was going on. Obviously now someone else was listening in, he didn’t do it at all!
Decided we would see how he was in the morning, as this was about 1:30 am, and if he was still doing it he was going to the vets.
Thursday rolls around and we got him into the vets.
The vet gave his lungs a listen and couldn’t hear anything, checked his teeth and they were fine, his nose was clean and lastly gave his eyes a look. They had a slight bit of milky kinda discharge.
I then told her that I’d purchase this forage box. I had cut the box to take the ingredients list with me to show the vet and she looked and said there was nothing in there that would cause sneezing/coughing.
She then said she wondered if the dust from the box had aggravated him and was causing his eyes to weep which was causing too much fluid going on so he was essentially trying to cough up the fluid/(mucus type thing if it were a person with a chesty cough, y’know?)
He has been given Isathal 10mg/ml to be put into both eyes twice a day, which he’s had for, what will be 2 weeks on Thursday.
I thought he was slightly improving and maybe he has a little, but he’s still coughing/making a duck noise and sneezing.
We removed the forage box on the Thursday afternoon after the vets. I kept him downstairs after the vets and I gave my room a good hoovering.
He is absolutely fine in himself. Still eating/drinking/peeing/pooping like normal and he doesn’t appear bothered by the coughing too much either.
He hasn’t had any new hay in this time to cause a sneeze/cough. Nothing new has been introduced, except the forage box that I took away.
His nose isn’t runny and his eyes have greatly improved.
Just when I think I may have figured out what’s keeping him making the duck noise, he then proves me wrong and I don’t know what it is!
I’ve been googling it ever since we got him home from the vets and I’m still confused.
He’s got no other symptoms of a cold/snuffles, or a URI and I think if it were as “simple” as a URI the vet would of picked that up straight away.
Chibi has to go back to the vets next week anyway for his booster jabs so he’ll be going back anyway, but I’m worried in case the vets fob us off? I don’t know…I just hate seeing Chibi coughing his lungs up and the noise is so awful.
So I guess my final questions are:
Has anyone else’s bunny made a noise like a duck before?
Is this actually a cough he’s doing?
Any thoughts on what’s going on?
Thank you everybun in advance for your replies!