Akut Slime coming from bunny's nose

[Viktoria343]

Hello
So my 7-year old dwarf rabbit Dennis has experienced two times that right after he ate pellets that slime was coming out of his nose and he was very scared and pulling his head and opening his mouth. At one point he was running around and then lay down for hours till it stopped. After he looked very exhausted and just lied in one spot but he ate and popped at least. The first time it only lasted 15min but the last time it lasted about an hour. We took him to the vet and they saw he has a wound inside his ear and they checked his mouth, ears and belly. There's no rabbit expert doctor here nearby and we can't afford take him and make a full check up unfortunately. The vet here said she thinks it could be parasite illness that's in his belly and therefore gave us deworming medication that we give him everyday for 28 days. I have been reading articles about bunnies acting like this and some sites say its an infection and that's just the bunnies way of puking but some say it means that the bunny has some serious deadly illness. I'm not sure what it can be and therefor ask you guys if you know anything. The people that have had this happening said that they gave the bunny antibiotics for a few days but we haven't, we have only given him deworming but will that help? And this has always happened when he ate another type of pellets so we don't give him that pellets any more of course.
Thankful for replies

 

[Hermelin]

It migh be he started to choke on the pellets, the way you describe sounds like choking. Was the pellets bit really small?

You can soak the pellets and make it to a porridge or scatter the pellets to make your bunny work for the food and eat slowly. Myself had a few choking incidence on oxbows pellets might be because my bunnies are used with larger pellets bits.

Often after a choking it can be a risk a bunny devolope an infection in the throat/ lungs the reason why they often get treated with antibiotics after choking to minimize the risk of getting an infections.

When one of my bunnies choked it would flax the ears, open the mouth looked like gasping for air, jump around restless and look like it was puking plus discharge from the nose. My bunny often ran to me to get help and I would do the heimlich to make the food come up. After a bad choke my bunny would be tired and lay down.

Did the vet look on his molars, so there was no spurs that can have caused him to not chew properly while eating.

 

[Viktoria343]

Thanks for your answer.

What you wrote seems very logical since both times it happened my bunny was eating a mix of Oxbow pellets and some others mixed in. He is also used to bigger pellets that are like a donut and bigger than the Oxbow ones obviously. My rabbit was acting the same as you described your rabbit's behaviour. At the vet, they checked his molars but she said there's no problem at all with them. The vet said that these incidents can be by a parasite illness and therefore gave us deworming fluid to give him for 28 days as a test treatment. That vet suggested us to go to a rabbit expert further away but unfortunately, we can't but our vet is only guessing it could be that but I really hope it's just the pellets like you said. Is there any way I can see if he has an infection now after the choking? Maybe the deworming fluid helps that a bit if he has it.

 

[Hermelin]

Look out for weird/ struggling of breathing, stuffy nose or any lost of appetite. It can be signs of respiratory infections. But your bunny should be find.

So he can be off the deworming medication, I also have never heard that you feed deworming for a month every day. Myself had only done one weak and then doing the second treatment a month later.

Did your vet do test to check for worms in the droppings of your bunny?

 

[JBun]

To me this is a clear case of choking as hermelin suggested. The head movement, mouth opening, discharge coming out of the nose, and panicked running, are all signs of a choking episode. In my opinion this has nothing to do with the possibility of a parasite, so deworming medicine is unnecessary and won't help at all.
https://www.vgr1.com/choking/
The biggest risk after this has happened and the obstruction is cleared and the rabbit can breath again, is from food particles getting in the lungs and causing aspiration pneumonia. How long has it been since this last happened? Any signs of noisy or difficulty breathing?

 

[Viktoria343]

Look out for weird/ struggling of breathing, stuffy nose or any lost of appetite. It can be signs of respiratory infections. But your bunny should be find.

So he can be off the deworming medication, I also have never heard that you feed deworming for a month every day. I had only done one weak and then doing the second treatment a month later.

Did your vet do test to check for worms in the droppings of your bunny?

My vet didn't check for worms since they can't here at our vet clinic so she said its a test treatment and that if it doesn't help the problem it won't have any bad effects. My rabbit haven't had any bad effects from it besides a bit soft poop but he has that otherwise too every once in a while.

 

[Viktoria343]

To me this is a clear case of choking as hermelin suggested. The head movement, mouth opening, discharge coming out of the nose, and panicked running, are all signs of a choking episode. In my opinion this has nothing to do with the possibility of a parasite, so deworming medicine is unnecessary and won't help at all.
https://www.vgr1.com/choking/
The biggest risk after this has happened and the obstruction is cleared and the rabbit can breath again, is from food particles getting in the lungs and causing aspiration pneumonia. How long has it been since this last happened? Any signs of noisy or difficulty breathing?

Last time this happened was 7th May and since it has not happened. One day after the choking he was exhausted and just lying and all his exercise was to jump in his cage to eat, drink, pee and poop but a day after he was like normal again and he is still. No difficulty of breathing or anything changed and he has a big appetite as usual.
The first time this happened was about a year ago and then and this time too I was giving him a mix of Oxbow pellets which he doesn't eat normally, he usually gets bigger pellets and only bigger pellets now. I hope that could be the cause.

 

[Viktoria343]

It migh be he started to choke on the pellets, the way you describe sounds like choking. Was the pellets bit really small?

You can soak the pellets and make it to a porridge or scatter the pellets to make your bunny work for the food and eat slowly. Myself had a few choking incidence on oxbows pellets might be because my bunnies are used with larger pellets bits.

Often after a choking it can be a risk a bunny devolope an infection in the throat/ lungs the reason why they often get treated with antibiotics after choking to minimize the risk of getting an infections.

When one of my bunnies choked it would flax the ears, open the mouth looked like gasping for air, jump around restless and look like it was puking plus discharge from the nose. My bunny often ran to me to get help and I would do the heimlich to make the food come up. After a bad choke my bunny would be tired and lay down.

Did the vet look on his molars, so there was no spurs that can have caused him to not chew properly while eating.

To me this is a clear case of choking as hermelin suggested. The head movement, mouth opening, discharge coming out of the nose, and panicked running, are all signs of a choking episode. In my opinion this has nothing to do with the possibility of a parasite, so deworming medicine is unnecessary and won't help at all.
https://www.vgr1.com/choking/
The biggest risk after this has happened and the obstruction is cleared and the rabbit can breath again, is from food particles getting in the lungs and causing aspiration pneumonia. How long has it been since this last happened? Any signs of noisy or difficulty breathing?

I have a full video of it happening which I showes to the vet too but it says I can't post it here so here's a pic of the video instead

 

[Hermelin]

The only choking incidence I had was with oxbow pellets. So myself always soak those pellets. I think my bunny scarf them down which end with them not being chewed correctly. So I’m never buying oxbow again, I rather buy larger pellets bits with my bunnies that would scarf down the food when it’s smaller bits.

You can share a video by uploading it as a youtube and share the url/link.

But the picture look a bit like gasping of air with the mouth open and your bunny had the symptoms of choking. You can take him off the medication he don’t need it and it have been a while since he started to choke, so he’s safe shouldn’t have any infections if he haven’t showed any signs.

 

[Viktoria343]

Thank you

 

[JBun]

I agree that he does look to be gasping for air in the photo. You only have to worry about the risk of pneumonia soon after it's happened, so it's not something I would be concerned about now either. Since you've changed to the bigger pellets then hopefully it shouldn't be a problem anymore .