Margot's sore hocks are a bloody mess. Literally.

[gentle giants]

It sounds like you are doing great treating Margot, and you have gotten great advice here already, but as usual I'm going to add my two cents anyway. If you said this and I missed it, I apologize, but what kind of flooring is she on? I can't stress enough the importance of a soft floor for sensitive feet. I have had a couple that were so sensitive that I would put down multiple layers on their flooring. I even made special flannel "bunny seats" for one little buck.

What your vet said about keeping her hocks from abcessing is very true, my first experience with an abcess was caused by sore hocks on a Flemish buck. They looked like a mild case, I treated them with Neosporin, and they appeared to be healed fine, but a couple of days later the abcess appeared. She is a velveteen lop, right? Those (I think!) are part Mini Rex, which is a breed that is prone to sore hocks anyway. I have one doe, Sweetheart, that is really sensitive. I learned a long time ago, if she spends even a couple of hours on a wire floor, she will be bleeding. Good luck with your girl, I'm sure she will get better soon.

 

[Spring]

Good luck with her hocks!

My girls have sensitive feet to hard flat surfaces, and I found a really cushiony pet travel bed at wal-mart for $7 that they love, might be an option since it's a blanket but has soft foam in it that will cushion her feet and help the soreness. Hard slippery surfaces can be really harsh on sore hocks, sometimes like GG said, you need a few layers of soft material to help.

 

[Alexah]

gentle giants wrote:

If you said this and I missed it, I apologize, but what kind of flooring is she on?

No need to apologize . And, yes, Margot is a velveteen lop.

Prior to coming to live with me, Margot was on a wire bottomed floor. She didn't have any solid flooring and that's where I think everything started going downhill for her. She is now on the same flooring as all of my other bunnies -- wood floorboard beneath linoleum tiles. She also has had a fleecy blanket in there since day one though I now realize that that's not enough. She now has a cushy layer of fleece covering her floor with a small piece of vet bed in one corner and in the other another fleece blanket. I couldn't get out there today with everything else I had to do, but I will be going to either Walmart or Target to pick up a foam pet bed for her to lay in as well.

She's resting comfortably tonight, but her hocks looked terrible. I'm done with her for the night and I did give her some more Metacam before saying goodnight to her. I'm really worried about abscesses right now so I'm doing everything possible to help that not to happen. I did the compresses and then put some "blue stuff" on her and called it a night. I think we've both been through enough for the day.

Tomorrow will be just more of the same and hoping that Margot's feet start looking better. I ordered vet bed for my "friend" -- you know, the one who was the originally the owner of Margot -- and I'm hoping she'll at least place a small square in each of her pens because allowing something like this to happen is just not okay. But enough of that...at least Margot is being treated and hopefully we'll start to see improvement sooner rather than later.

 

[Maureen Las]

I really hope they start to improve. it sounds like you have a handle on the situation.

Such a shame that she lived on wire ...

 

[gentle giants]

I do understand you being worried about abcesses, but keep in mind you are doing everything possible to make sure she doesn't get one. Plus the fact that you are keeping a close eye on her hocks will ensure that if she does get one, you will catch it early and get treatment started. And while an abcess is definatly not fun, they are treatable. Sore hocks, once started, take a long time to heal. The nethie buck I had with the super sensitive feet had sore hocks when I got him, and even with the bunny pads I made him and me watching them, like a hawk, it took him almost a year to not only heal the skin but start to get fur back there.