Blue skin

[stargazerLily]

This morning I went in to check on the rabbits before I left for work, like I always do. I usually pick them up, give them a once over to make sure all is well, give them hay, fresh water, etc. Well, this morning while doing Orion's once over, I noticed his skin was blue where he was missing fur. He has been missing fur for almost 3 weeks thanks to Galaxy's mounting, but the fur has been growing back pretty nicely. I checked the skin where he wasn't missing fur and it was blue as well, and even the skin in his ears was blue. I checked his color in his mouth, capillary refill, etc, and it was all fine. He was acting fine, not painful, letting me do what ever to him. Last night his skin was normal color, no sign of anything wrong with him, he ate his food with his usual gusto, cuddled, played, all normal last night and this morning. The only thing that has changed is that his skin is blue. And there were also no signs of a scuffle betweenGalaxy and Orion (their cage is set up that even with them playing normally, you can tell where they've been by the things that have been moved around).

Since I was running behind this morning, I left him home, but ran the scenario by my vet when I got to work. She couldn't think of anything that it could be, and said that if I had the time to run him in for an exam. I went home and got him during my lunch break and the vet examined him when I got back. She couldn't find anything wrong with him, other than his blue skin. All his vitals were normal, he didn't show any signs of being painful, hopped around the office like he owned it, and gave everyone bunny kisses and binkies. Since the skin is more blue where he's growing fur back in, the only thing the vet could come up with is that the skin was just darker due to the hair growing back in or like in siamese cats, his skin was darker due to being exposed. She is hesitant to do a skin biopsy, and since everything else checked out fine, wants to hold off on doing blood work. He came back home with me with a "watch and see" diagnosis.

Any ideas what this could be? I'm not super duper worried because he's acting fine, and if he does show any signs of not being right, all I have to do is call and my vet will meet me at work, but there is still a curiosity worry.

 

[Bo B Bunny]

How dark of blue? Could he have just been cold?

 

[stargazerLily]

I'm not thinking cold since the coldest it got in my house was 70F last night, and it's been colder (a couple nights ago it was 62F in the house). The blue is hard to describe. I want to say the color blue you would see on a bruise, but if it is a bruise, wouldn't he be painful, and why/how could he end up with a whole body bruise?

 

[Bo B Bunny]

Well, could it be new hair? Think about little pink babies.... when they get their hair, if they are going to be black -- they look sort of bruised. Bo has some places that are black, some more of a gray and then pink skin where there is no fur at all right now.. just a couple little places. I think when the skin hasn't erupted the new hair it does that...... I bet in a few days he'll have pink skin again.

UNLESS - he was getting sick / bloat and his temp dropped from illness.