To my detriment Itell youthat I had a rabbit, who, eventually, died from abscesses. He was a 5-yro male mixed netherland dwarf breed (he was abt. 10,5 pounds, so he was a mix with a bigger breed), who had pasteurellosis transmitted by him mom at birth. The initial sign was sporadic sneezing when he was 1-3 months old. Afterwards, he never sneezed again and had no respiratory problems either. One day I noticed 2-3 soft lumps at his genitals (at the area just around his penis). I didn't know anything about pasteurella or abscesses at that time, Pepe was my first bunny. I never found out how this happened either,so I could only speculate on the most probable cause:when he got the abscesses it was late spring time and I'd started to open the balcony doors (I live in Greece and late April-early May can be fairly warm, May is the month we start going to the beaches) and, a couple of times, I noticed on the floorone or twospider-like light-brown-coloured mites, which I killed. Back then I didn't have tents in my balconies, as I do now. So what I guessed afterwards (having also read a lot of info on abscesses) is that these spider-like mites, often carried by pigeons (which we do have in abundancyin my area) bit my poor bunny at his genitals and this tiny rupturein his skin facilitated the infection and triggered the formation of pasteurella abscesses. Please note that this is only a guess, I have no hard evidence that this what happened. Within a week the abscesses started to get bigger and bigger. At this point I brought my bunny to an animal hospital and 3 different vets, however, only one told me it was certainly abscesses by the way they looked (he took no sample for a culture), but he used to be a "livestock" vet and had seen thisnumerous timesat rabbitries, as he told me.The others were inconclusive, as they didn't know what pasteurellosis was, no lab tests were available and had never seen howan abscess looks like (believe it or not, in Greece we don't have rabbit-savvy vets. Not even one. I've searched a lot). Then, having no other choice and being frantically dispaired by that time,I started reading all the material I could find at the internet and I also contacted Mrs. Marcy Moore, a neurologist at U-Mass, who discovered the abscess treatment protocol via Bicillin. I'm sure you've heard of this amazing lady. Mrs. Moore was extremely kind and considerate and she even helped me get the Pen-G combo from New York and have it shipped all the way to Greece, since Bicillin is an old and out-of-use drug and it's notmanufactured anywherein Europe anymore. Therefore, I started a treatment of 1 Pen-G shot per day, 2 Baytrill pills (morning and evening) per day and also daily cleaning of the pus in the abscess area with hydrogen peroxide (the most painful thing I had to do). Unfortunately, no one could perform an abscess removal surgery in Greece, so conservative treatment was my only choice. My bunny, Pepe, heroically lived for 7,5 months from the treatment initiation and the last month he kept straining to pee and kept being in a hunched position in his house. Otherwise, he was eating, drinking and pooping as usual. One evening I returned home from work and I found him lying dead on the floor, I didn't have the courage to have him autopsied (I didn't know of any vet that would undertake it, anyway...), however, from what I've read and discussed over the internet, an abscess must have been internally ruptured and this must've caused his death. By that time, the abscesses had multiplied,they'd covered most of his tummy area andhis penis had been completely deformed by the pressure exercised by the surrounding abscesses filled with pus. It was a dreadful experience, even more because I had no professional help to combat the illness. I guess if somebody here know how to operate on the abscesses when they were still few and small, my Pepe would have lived. He died a bad and painful way. It was so unfair for him...
Marietta
