EMERGENCY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(RIP)

[Julie_in_PA]

my bunny has yellowish diarrhea and also just lost her bunny buddy a day ago ... and now she is "near death" .. barely moving, etc. more details to come ...

 

[Julie_in_PA]

Ok ... more details (I just wanted to get a breif message posted so you's can start commenting right away)

I don't know what happened to her buddy ... before I knew anything was even wrong, she was dead.

As for this bunny that's still alive (but barely) ... she's a giant chinchilla bunny who's 12 weeks old. She seemed fine up until today ... she's next to lifeless ... just laying there in a bunny resting position. When I pick her up she doesn't barely move ... but when I moved around with her in my arms a little - she did kick a bit, but she didn't put up a "BIG" fight. My husband rolled her on her side and she didn't fight him about that either. She looks so pitiful ... her eyes don't look "alive" ... her water froze today and I don't know how long it was froze for (most likely atleast all day) plus I JUST NOW realized she has some yellowish diarrhea on her backend. I didn't see it in her cage (?) and I didn't even see it on her ... but then when my hubby was trying to roll her on her side ... he spotted it then. So is she dehydrated ? Or something else ?

 

[Pipp]

She'll need immediate ER care -- warmth (in incubator), fluids (intravenous or subcutaneous) and probably injected antibiotics.

Can you rush her to an ER?


sas ray:

 

[NorthernAutumn]

I hope someone answers quick Julie, but if it's as bad as you think, I think you better get to the vet.

ETA: Nevermind, sas is fast !

 

[Julie_in_PA]

more details ...

I tried giving her water right away ... she wasn't interested ... unless she's just to weak to accept it. I did syringe a little into her anyway.

I have meds ... Pennicillian, Scour Treatments, etc. but I have mostly livestock meds. I'm used to treating goats, and other livestock ... but never before a bunny. So I don't know if anything I have is safe for her or not ???

 

[Maureen Las]

Pipp is right she needs emergency care ...take her to the vet and try to warm her up some on the way...wrap her up in a blanket and get her inside

it's hard to know exactly what's going on with the info ..sounds grave
if she is not at all alert you can not syringe fluids but if she is ....you can syringe luke warm water if she will swallow.

please let us know....

 

[Maureen Las]

right now she needs subqutaneous fluids , needs to have her body temp stabilized
The antibiotics etc come later...

 

[Pipp]

She'll need warm fluids injected. You need to warm her up and keep her as warm as possible. The antibiotics are usually just guesswork for a systemic infection, don't bother with them now. This sounds like some type of enteritis. Not much you can do at home.

No time to read this now, but if the vet needs more info, here's a good link from our library:

Enteritis Complexes: Coccidiosis, Mucoid Enteropathy, and Enterotoxemia (Pamela Alley) - describes the different intestinal ailments that commonly cause diarrhea in rabbits.
http://www.showbunny.com/gastrointestinal.htm


sas

 

[Julie_in_PA]

we don't have any 24hr vet near our area ... we live in the boonies. All the vets around here are closed. I did try to call my vet's emergency phone and could not get through ... I don't know if it's not working or not ... it just won't connect me. So I can't get through to my vet. And like I said - no one's at the veterinarian office ... it's closed.

I can give her some warm water sq. I've given lots of shots sq to animals ... for illnesses, routine vaccinations, etc. So I can atleast do that. Should I give her some sugar in the water ... or just plain water ?

She IS moving ... she's not nonresponsive. Infact, I think since I brought her in the house and put her near the furnace - she's doing better already. I just pet her and she moved off her big pillow I had her on (yup .. she actually "hopped" off when I pet her). So she is still "alive" and responsive ... but still not anywhere near out of the woods I fear. Unless she was simply that cold and that's why she seemed lifeless !? It is cold outside here and snowy - but she was inside a barn fully enclosed.

Anyway, I also have dealt with coccidiosis before. Just not in bunnies. I would like to try anything I can here at home for tonight and call my vet in the morning when they're open (since I can't get them now! argh!). One of the things for sure will be keeping her in the house and really cozy and warm. The other for now will be giving her fluid sq ... (with or without sugar?). Anything else I can do until I can actually consult my vet ??

 

[Pipp]

There is a recipe kicking around for home made pedialyte if you don't have any, although gatorade works as well.

But best to try and determine what is ailing her first. Apologies to Pam Alley, but I'll reproduce the whole article here for now.

Enteritis Complexes:
Coccidiosis, Mucoid Enteropathy, and Enterotoxemia

Enteritis complexes are some of the biggest killers of rabbits. Why, it is not certain, but there does seem to be a definite relationship between diet and gastrointestinal status, especially as pertains to the fiber content of the diet In this article we will discuss the three top complexes, their actions, and the treatments commonly used.

Coccidiosis

Coccidiosis is a commonly-seen cause of diarrhea, especially in the young animal. The organism responsible is a protozoan parasite, Eimeria steidae. Other forms of the Eimeria species can also cause disease.

There are two distinct forms of coccidiosis; liver and intestinal. Liver coccidiosis is usually affects the young to yearling animal, and is manifested largely on a non-clinical level, save for possible lack of gain, and perhaps a slight persistent diarrhea.

The intestinal form is more common, especially in those animals on high carbohydrate, low fiber diets. Signs are seen anywhere from three weeks of age through adulthood as populations of Eimeria become high enough to cause problems for GI tract.

Some signs of intestinal coccidiosis are: severe diarrhea with a sudden onset; persistent non-responsive diarrhea which is not alleviated by increasing fiber levels in the diet; or a positive fecal flotation test for coccidiosis.

Eimeria is a small protozoan parasite which colonizes the crypts of the intestinal wall. As higher numbers accumulate, damage may be done to the wall of the gut, and a diarrhea with an extremely distinctive odor is released.

Once smelt, never forgotten; a fecal flotation test should be performed immediately to differentiate coccidiosis from other causes. A positive result means it is time to treat the herd and step up one's disinfection program.

Coccida are parasites, and as such, shed eggs which are infective after 24 hours out of the body, which is why a disinfection program is essential. Daily removal of all fecal material from the cage wires, resting boards, and floors will aid greatly in reducing the occurrence of coccidial enteritis.

Liver coccidiosis is not usually a great cause of diarrhea, but is a significant cause of unthrifty appearance and lack of gain due to liver damage.

The damage done to the liver and bile duct can appear as small, pencil-point white areas on the liver; in some very severe cases, larger areas of the liver may be discolored.

These livers are not safe for human consumption and must be discarded, which is a complaint often heard from the processor as well.

Treatment of coccidiosis of either type may be accomplished by a common method. This is the use of a sulfa drug such as sulfadimethoxine, sulfaquinoxaline, or sulfamethazine as directed by the veterinarian.

This drug class is one of the small number approved for rabbits; however, dosage should be determined by the veterinarian and caution must be taken to observe the prescribed withdrawal period before using the animals for meat of any kind.

Once treated, the animals generally recover without major recurrence. Outlook after treatment is promising, and unless the animal experienced severe and prolonged dehydration, recovery is swift and uneventful. Keeping dietary fiber levels high is helpful in encouraging recovery.

Mucoid Enteropathy

A second common diarrheal complex is what was formerly called mucoid enteritis, named that for the clear jellylike stools which appear as the disease progresses. As time and research have shown, mucoid enteritis was not entirely accurate as a name, so the title mucoid enteropathy was adopted to take in the many ramifications involved.

Mucoid enteropathy, or ME for short, affects usually young fryers on a high carbohydrate, low fiber diet, although there have been cases when a different diet composition was used. The initial signs appear as a slight listlessness and lack of appetite, combined with an insatiable thirst. The affected animal will commonly sit hunched, with its head high and front feet in the water crock. With automatic watering systems, the animal will again sit hunched directly beneath the valve and hold the head high. As this continues, grinding of the molar teeth will begin and a very liquid diarrhea will erupt.

After a period of 12-48 hours at this stage, the young animal will be extremely weak and begin discharging a clear, jellylike substance that may even be formed into stoollike pellets. The definitive diagnostic method for mucoid by the average rabbit breeder is to pick the animal up and shake it gently. If ME is present, this movement will produce a sound like a half-full Thermos bottle.

Dehydration in ME is a killer; animals provided with sufficient subcutaneous or IV fluids have a better chance to recover. Feeding straight fiber sources to encourage gut peristalsis recovery has been proven to be of value. If palpated, some animals will have a distended and doughy to hard cecum. For the commercial breeder, these animals are usually counted as a dead loss, as recovery is possible, but hardly worth the effort to them; the growth rate afterward is severely depressed. Affected animals are usually culled.

Preventive measures have varied over the years; from copper in the feed to a very high fiber level. A high incidence of ME is normally diet related; the precise cause is not yet known.

A finding linked to the impaction of the cecum is a pleural effusion, or fluid accumulation in the lungs. Animals with this phenomenon might recover in time also; but this result is doubtful.

Outlook is poor, few animals recover from this disease, and of those that do, virtually none do as well as they might.

It does seem to vary in incidence between geographical areas; perhaps this is something which might be intriguing to study.

Persistence, patience, and lots of good clean oat or grass hay seem to be the best and most available remedy and preventive at this point in time.

Enterotoxemia

The third diarrheal problem discussed here is the most severe and dreaded, enterotoxemia. Enterotoxemia. is a disease usually of the young animal, and is caused by the iota toxin released by a bacterium called Clostridium spiroforme.

Also called 'carbohydrate overload of the hindgut', enterotoxemia is a quite fast disease, and often results in death due to the systematic effects of the toxin.

C. spiroforme is a normal inhabitant of the cecum, a member of the cecal flora, and it is well-regulated by the growth of other normal flora until a larger amount of nutrients unused by other bacteria becomes available.

When this occurs, C. spiroforme initiates a population explosion, and, in the presence of glucose, begins to release its deadly chemical toxin.

The first sign the breeder will see is a sudden, messy diarrhea which may be so severe that fluid fecal material simply oozes or flows from the animal. The smell. is sour, unlike normal feces. A fecal flotation will reveal few or no coccidial oocytes (eggs).

The rabbit will be quite depressed, which makes sense ... they feel lousy, after all, and their belly may be very painful upon palpation. They will also become dehydrated rapidly, and this is the major cause of death in these young animals.

This disease is not limited to young stock; older animals may also contract it and die in large numbers.

Administration of antibiotics to reduce the population of C. spiroforme and electrolyte-containing fluids by mouth as well as given by injection are the main medical treatments for this disease at this time.

Competitive inhibition of C. spiroforme might be achieved by the use of probiotics such as live culture yogurt or commercial probiotic products. An immediate increase in the amount of crude fiber in the diet may also be of help. The outlook is grim, but recovery is possible.

As the main cause of the actual disease is a toxin, an antitoxin would be nice to have, as there is for tetanus. It is unfortunate that no such product is available.

Since we have no antitoxin, our best hope is to give the animals enough time to recover a balance of normal flora in the gut as well as removal of toxin from the system via normal metabolic processes.

Enterotoxemia is not a transmissible disease, unlike coccidiosis. As few as one, or as many as dozens of animals in the barn may be affected, old and young, dependent on just how high the carbohydrate might be in the diet.

Again, the outlook is grim, but be persistent and patient, and it will run its course.


Dehydration: A Silent Killer

One of the most common causes of fatalities in rabbits with diarrheal complexes is dehydration. How can you tell if your animal is dehydrated?

Pick up a fold of skin over the scruff, and pull it up quite high. If it 'snaps' rapidly back, that is normal hydration. The more slowly that skin returns, the more dehydrated they may be. Older animals may be an exception--make sure you know what normal is for each animal.

As fluid is lost from the animal's system, the rabbit becomes depressed and unwilling to eat or drink; meanwhile, the diarrhea continues and they become even more dehydrated. Intervention is needed, but how?

Since, according to Murphy's Law of Rabbit Raising, these things always happen at night and/or a weekend, let's start with easy-to-find rehydration substances. Gatorade (they seem to prefer lemon-lime or orange), split half and half with water and fed by using a syringe without the needle, is a good start.

Can't stand Gatorade? Go to the nearest grocery store, drug store, etc., and ask for a product called Pedialyte. It is a rehydration formula for human babies and does a pretty good job in rabbits. Again, you may need to force the rabbit to drink.

For some reason, giving fresh parsley seems to help get them started eating and drinking; if they are too depressed, however, even this may not work. Slightly crush the thick end of the parsley stem and put it into their mouth. They may chew once and let it hang there. Be persistent, but be careful not to overstress the animal.

A good thing to have on hand also is one of the vitamin/electrolyte powders, such as the AcidPak 4Way. Use in addition to the electrolyte solutions of Gatorade or Pedialyte.

If these simple methods do not work and the animal is still depressed and dehydrated, you will need veterinary assistance.

Since treatment of the cause of the diarrhea must be started as soon as possible, the oral fluids need to be regarded as a stopgap, temporary, measure. Veterinary diagnostics are needed.

In the case of a severely dehydrated animal, the vet may give, or show you how to give, subcutaneous fluids.

These are sterile veterinary solutions which are given by injection under the skin, and which are much more useful than oral fluids in the very ill animal.

They carry hazards of their own, however. It is easy to give too much, and this is not good either. Follow the veterinarian's advice!

With any dehydrated rabbit, warmth is essential, even in summer. Giving the rabbit two hot water bottles to huddle between, with an option to move away from them, of course, has resulted in much better fluid absorption and recovery.

When the rabbit becomes dehydrated, gut function is one of the first things affected, and thus a cycle is created which the process of rehydration alone may break. Hydration is also essential for proper metabolism of the drugs given as well.

Good luck ... patience and persistence will usually result in success.

 

[Julie_in_PA]

Ok - I found this information about meds for bunnies on this website = http://islandgems.net/meds.html



and it says that pepto can be used for diarrhea ... I've used it for goats, etc. for diarrhea before, so I have some on hand. So I will also start her on the pepto.

So here's what I'm doing ~ give pepto, give fluids sq, keep warm.

 

[Pipp]

Hold off on the Pepto, I remember something about it being pretty detrimental in some cases, I'll check that out first.

Best to read the Showbunny rundown above.

Here's a quick homemade Pedialyte recipe:

1 cup clean water
2 teaspoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/16 teaspoon salt (take some out of a 1/4 tsp. or use a rounded 1/8 tsp.)

 

[Julie_in_PA]

I do have a sulfa med ~ "Sulfamethoxazole" ... I was given this med by a veterinarian to treat a baby fawn with scours (diarrhea). So I still have it ... although it is expired by a few months.

I also have Corid ~ I noticed that was also listed as a so called "safe med" for bunnies according to the website I listed above. So I do have that med as well.

I'm not certain that it's a disease or anything though ... I'm really curious if the scours is a result of overfeeding. They were doing well on their feed and I was gradually giving them more and more ... and then I decided to add more to that yet (in hopes they would really grow like weeds so to speak) ... and was giving them unlimited feed basically. They weren't eating it like hogs though ... it never went empty. And I would check it once a day - it was never empty - I would just add to it to keep the level up. So I may have brought this on myself. And if it is simply food related - I would hate to go medicating her for no reason and possibly cause other problems.

What do ya think ?

 

[Julie_in_PA]

Pipp ~ I do have electrolytes - they don't say for bunnies - but they're safe for kittens, puppies, foals, lambs, goats, calf, pigs, etc.

Or should I just stick with the homemade recipe ?

She's moving on her own free will - she's actually up hopping around now !

I also have nutridrench for goats. ALthough it's for goats - all the nutridrenches are supposed to be mainly the same. I was planning on giving her a few drops of that to boost her blood sugar level. What do ya think ?

 

[Julie_in_PA]

Pipp ~ should I syringe FEED the pedyalite to her ... or give it to her sq with a needle ?

 

[Pipp]

If it's a powered electrolytes mix, it should be fine.

Right now it's really important to figure out why she's sick. Because the other one died, it seems likely it's a bug or virus or something, unless there was a drastic change in her diet. Just giving her more of the same food shouldn't have caused the problem.

Can you tell if it's fecal or 'cecal' matter?

Pepto would be detrimental if it's a dietary imbalance issue but helpful if it's a bug, so it's good to know.

Pam Alley describes the finer points symptom-wise in the above rundown.

If it's a dietary related imbalance, the best thing is restricting her to hay and water and giving her Bene-bac or another pro-biotic.

When did the diarrhea start? Is she bloated? Is it mucousy? Does she still have it?

Warmth and hydration are the only sure things, although the probiotic won't hurt. The vet would have to run a fecal test to know for sure what drugs to use or not to use.


sas :?

 

[Pipp]

Julie_in_PA wrote:

Pipp ~ should I syringe FEED the pedyalite to her ... or give it to her sq with a needle ?

The electolytes/pedialyte is always oral. The only Sub Q infusion possible would be with a sterile needle and lactated ringer solution.


sas

 

[Julie_in_PA]

I just took her temp - I'm slightly ambarrassed to admit - but I'm not sure which "area" I poked the thermometer into ... not being that "bunny smart" I don't know if I put the thermometer in her "vent" like her female area ... or in her anus ... ???

Would it make a difference ? Regardless, this is the temp I got - 91.5

 

[Pipp]

What have you been feeding them? Young bunnies should have unlimited feed, which is why I doubt the food is the issue, although if a diet change preceded the problem it's more of a consideration. What happened with the one you lost?

Re: temperature, here's hoping you didn't do it right because that's really low. Regular temp is I think between 100 and 102?

The one you stick it in should 'wink' at you when you touch it. I think we have pics or a video, I'll look.

Does she feel cold?


sas :?

 

[Julie_in_PA]

Here's pictures ... so you can see what the poo looks like ...

I'm feeding Manna Pro