Rabbit chewing on her chest - please help *graphic description*

[PeriAndBella]

Hello and thank you for taking the time to read my post... it's a little graphic, so I wanted to give fair warning.

About a month ago, one of my rabbits began to chew on her chest non-stop as if she had something caught in her fur. Upon further inspection, I was horrified to see she had been chewing the fur and skin off her chest, leaving a bare red spot about the size of a quarter. To clarify, the skin was actually gone (it was gross).

By the time I got her to the vet, it was scabbing over (still gross). The doc said it must have been some sort of abscess that got infected and eventually had been removed by the rabbit. He gave me three days of anti-inflammatory meds and after a few weeks the skin had grown back and her fur was starting to show again.

Well... today I caught her doing the same routine, gnawing at her chest. I inspected and saw she had removed a small patch of skin, roughly the size of a pea. I had to go to work for a few hours and when I came back she had removed the entire patch again.

Grrrr!!!!

From what I can tell, she's just doing it to herself without being provoked or harmed beforehand. Furthermore, it doesn't seem to be painful to her; she acts completely normal otherwise.


Background info...

My wife and I have two lionhead rabbits (sisters, same litter). One is spayed because we thought she was a boy at first and took her to be neutered; the other rabbit is not. They are almost one year old exactly.

They have always been inseparable, except for a few scuffles as they've matured. Even when we separate them for fighting, they immediately want to be back together; so I know they don't fight all the time when we're not looking.

They have a large pen (5ftx10ft) with all their toys and small hutch. We leave the pen cracked 90% of the time and let them roam around the house. They prefer to hang out in their pen mostly; they're in there right now, Isabella is chewing on herself as we speak, and there doesn't seem to be a thing I can do about it besides put her in a little bunny straight jacket (which I would never do).

Any information that can be offered will be greatly appreciated.

 

[JBun]

It may be due to pain else where in her body that she can't get to. This can result in things like barbering, excessive licking, or chewing at themselves in a more accessible part of their body, in an attempt to get to the painful area but are unable to. It could be a problem in the chest area such as the lungs, or even dental pain. Or may just be due to a skin condition. I think you may need to have further diagnostics done such as a skin scrape, dental exam, xrays, and/or blood tests, to try and find what may be causing this. If it is your unspayed doe that is doing this, that could be a possible cause of the self mutilation also, from the hormones, but cancer is also a risk for female rabbits too. One thing to discuss with the vet is if the anti inflammatory that was given previously, may have been helpful in stopping the behavior temporarily, possibly due to reducing inflammation and/or pain, and may be something to consider giving again.

If you aren't already seeing a rabbit specialist and have one you can take your rabbit to, I would suggest doing that, as a specialist will have the best chance of getting to the bottom of this behavior. You will want to get her to a vet right away. You may need her put in a collar to prevent her from injuring herself more, a soft collar is usually preferable for rabbits. You will likely need antibiotics as well, to prevent infection setting in.

http://www.medirabbit.com/EN/Skin_diseases/Mechanical/Mutilation/Selfmutilation.htm
http://wildpro.twycrosszoo.org/S/00dis/PhysicalTraumatic/Self_mutilation_rabbits.htm