hair in rabbit's eye

[bunny34422]

I noticed there's a thin little hair in Timothy's eye and I'm not sure what to do? He stayed pretty still while I tried to get a closer look but I wasn't able to get it out. That was about half an hour ago when I was in class. I checked again just now, I think it might be pushed back in his eye unless it's out, I can't tell as he keeps moving to eat his hay and I feel so bad. How can I help him? My parents just left with the car and won't be back til 5 and the vet is 30mins away and will be closed by then He has an appointment on Thursday but I don't know if it'll be too late by then. Someone told me to try flushing it out with saline. I'm scared I'm going to make it worse, are saline drops for babies safe for rabbits?

The pic is from earlier when I was actually able to see it, now I can't and I don't want to mess around with his eye

 

[JBun]

Plain saline eye drops are perfectly safe. Something like natural tears, etc, not visine or eye drops for red eye. If you can't see it anymore, he probably managed to get it out himself. It's pretty common for rabbits to get bits of fluff in their eyes, and usually they manage to wipe it out of there themselves. But when they can't, plain saline eye drops will help flush it out.

 

[bunny34422]

Plain saline eye drops are perfectly safe. Something like natural tears, etc, not visine or eye drops for red eye. If you can't see it anymore, he probably managed to get it out himself. It's pretty common for rabbits to get bits of fluff in their eyes, and usually they manage to wipe it out of there themselves. But when they can't, plain saline eye drops will help flush it out.

Okay thank you so much! I'm not 100% sure if it's out, I thought I had saline eye drops for my contacts but I guess not so I'll go buy some soon. Would something like this work? And do I just put a few drops in his eye to rinse it out?

https://www.cvs.com/shop/cvs-health-saline-solution-for-sensitive-eyes-prodid-458126

 

[Shmibunny]

You could ask for single-dose saline rinse vials that work for eyes, wounds, anything medical. It's what I buy at pharmacy for my bunny who has one eye with slight chronic weeping. They are single use, but handy to have around and pretty inexpensive. Saline solution is a 0,9% sodium chloride (salt) solution. Just salt and sterile water. That's the same salt level as in your blood and tissues so it doesn't irritate the eye or membranes. I'd be cautious about contact lens solutions, they might contain other things and be more branded/pricey.

When rinsing the eye, you can gently push the upper eyelid upwards a little and aim the liquid at the white area so it flows downwards and flushes the eye. Or pull down the lower lid and aim there, or aim at the inner corner, depending where the hair is (if you see it). With pure saline, you can use as much liquid as needed. It doesn't matter. One drop is likely not to be very useful though. Avoid squirting right at the centre of the eye as it feels annoying and the bunny is a lot more likely to flinch. If you ever used eyedrops yourself, you'll know! And do all this with clean hands, soap wash is good, as you'll be touching near the bunny's eye. You can use a tissue below the eye to catch the dripping water or pat the hairs dry afterwards.

If you see the hair in the corner of the eye, for example, you can moisten a cotton stick and very, very gently try to help it out but flushing is better. It's quite possible it came out by itself already though.

Hope this helps.

 

[JBun]

It'll work as long as your bun isn't sensitive to the added preservatives. Otherwise a preservative free single vial saline eye drop, like Shmibunny suggests, would be better.

And you can use as much as is needed to flush the debris out. For me it usually only takes a few drops in the rabbits eye. Though sometimes it will only flush it right to the edge of the eyelid, then I take a clean finger right at that eyelid edge to help it the rest of the way out.