Rabbit under weight?

[JBun]

Yeah, no distended belly that I can see from the photo, but boy, rabbits are sure tiny without all that fluff. And she was really fluffy before getting clipped.

That does look like it's a pinworm. Glad you caught that, it would have been easy to miss. Usual treatment is with fenbendazole. I'm not sure what brands you have there, but Panacur 100mg/ml liquid suspension or Panacur paste for rabbits would be the most common brand and type used.

It's given at a dose of 20mg/kg, once a day, and I would give it for at least 5 days, based on a 5 day treatment stated on the mercvet site. You should be able to get it from your vet and they can tell you the right dose to use(you may be able to just call and pick it up instead of bringing your rabbit in), or it may be available online or over the counter where you are, which is usually the cheapest option. This is the rabbit paste and the box will have the correct dosing instructions.
Panacur paste for rabbits

https://www.vetuk.co.uk/rabbit-supplies-rabbit-wormers-c-649_651/panacur-rabbit-oral-paste-5g-p-1105
Just regular cleaning is needed. Once you start treating her for it, I would clean out the litter box, clean up her area, and wash any blankets or pet beds she uses.

And hopefully that takes care of it. Pinworms can be a bit difficult to clear up as the rabbit can re ingest eggs when licking their bum, but giving for at least 5 days is supposed to be enough to clear it.

Once she's treated, there's a good chance all of these gas and digestive issues will clear up, and she will likely start keeping and putting weight on better. After treatment, I would suggest maybe increasing pellet amounts a little. Her poop color looks really good, so it means she's getting plenty of indigestible fiber in her diet, so as long as she's eating a pile of hay the size of her body each day, I think a little more pellets would be helpful in helping get her to a healthy body weight.

 

[Haru the Lionhead]

Yeah, no distended belly that I can see from the photo, but boy, rabbits are sure tiny without all that fluff. And she was really fluffy before getting clipped.

That does look like it's a pinworm. Glad you caught that, it would have been easy to miss. Usual treatment is with fenbendazole. I'm not sure what brands you have there, but Panacur 100mg/ml liquid suspension or Panacur paste for rabbits would be the most common brand and type used.

It's given at a dose of 20mg/kg, once a day, and I would give it for at least 5 days, based on a 5 day treatment stated on the mercvet site. You should be able to get it from your vet and they can tell you the right dose to use(you may be able to just call and pick it up instead of bringing your rabbit in), or it may be available online or over the counter where you are, which is usually the cheapest option. This is the rabbit paste and the box will have the correct dosing instructions.
Panacur paste for rabbits

https://www.vetuk.co.uk/rabbit-supplies-rabbit-wormers-c-649_651/panacur-rabbit-oral-paste-5g-p-1105
Just regular cleaning is needed. Once you start treating her for it, I would clean out the litter box, clean up her area, and wash any blankets or pet beds she uses.

And hopefully that takes care of it. Pinworms can be a bit difficult to clear up as the rabbit can re ingest eggs when licking their bum, but giving for at least 5 days is supposed to be enough to clear it.

Once she's treated, there's a good chance all of these gas and digestive issues will clear up, and she will likely start keeping and putting weight on better. After treatment, I would suggest maybe increasing pellet amounts a little. Her poop color looks really good, so it means she's getting plenty of indigestible fiber in her diet, so as long as she's eating a pile of hay the size of her body each day, I think a little more pellets would be helpful in helping get her to a healthy body weight.

I’m not sure of what treatment we got here, but what if the vet only has injectable treatment, would that work?
I saw you on other threads talking about it being hard to treat if the treatment was one day, and that it would be better if it was five days, if it was injectable I don’t think that they will give it to her for five days, or does injectable treatment work differently?

 

[JBun]

The treatment for pinworms is an oral medication. Your vet may want to give injectable ivermectin to treat it if your vet doesn't know that ivermectin isn't known to cure rabbit pinworms. All the articles that I've read about rabbit pinworms, ivermectin isn't supposed to be a very effective treatment for it, so most likely won't completely cure it, if it works at all.

I mean, if your vet insists on ivermectin and you can't find the oral fenbendazole to use instead, then I guess let your vet try ivermectin and see what happens. If your vet does try injectable ivermectin, it is only one injection(0.4mg/kg), then you would get a follow up injection 2 weeks later. But if after the first injection, your rabbit keeps having odd shaped poop and gas episodes, then you'll know the ivermectin didn't work. But if at all possible, try and find Fenbendazole, as that is the prescribed treatment for rabbit pinworms. With fenbendazole, I would do the 5 days, then 10-14 days later do one more day of treatment just to make sure you got them all.

 

[Haru the Lionhead]

The treatment for pinworms is an oral medication. Your vet may want to give injectable ivermectin to treat it if your vet doesn't know that ivermectin isn't known to cure rabbit pinworms. All the articles that I've read about rabbit pinworms, ivermectin isn't supposed to be a very effective treatment for it, so most likely won't completely cure it, if it works at all.

I mean, if your vet insists on ivermectin and you can't find the oral fenbendazole to use instead, then I guess let your vet try ivermectin and see what happens. If your vet does try injectable ivermectin, it is only one injection(0.4mg/kg), then you would get a follow up injection 2 weeks later. But if after the first injection, your rabbit keeps having odd shaped poop and gas episodes, then you'll know the ivermectin didn't work. But if at all possible, try and find Fenbendazole, as that is the prescribed treatment for rabbit pinworms. With fenbendazole, I would do the 5 days, then 10-14 days later do one more day of treatment just to make sure you got them all.

I just called the vet, the ones that I wanted to see are not answering at all, I called the vet, they said that they have fenbendazole (pills) is this how it is? because the one that my friend took was liquid, also when I called i only asked if they have it or not, I didn’t say rabbit, it wouldn’t matter because the receptionist wouldn’t know, are rabbits fenbendazole different from what other pets take?

 

[Haru the Lionhead]

the vet that I wanted to take her to answered me, he asked about her weight, and told me that i can pick up the medicine, my dad picked it up, it’s also pills, he gave me one pill that’s broken in half, and told me to give her one half today, and the other half after two weeks.
I asked him about five days treatment, and how should I give her the pill, he didn’t answer please help, will this work¿ if the expensive vet and the cheep vet both only have pills, then that’s the only treatment we have here, but would it treat her if it wasn’t for five days¿ and how should I give it to her¿ I thought that he would give me a bottle of pills on something like how we usually buy medicine, so even if he said one day i was going to give her five, but he only gave for two days

 

[JBun]

The pills could be difficult to administer. You would have to cut the pill to the right dose and then crush and mix it with something tasty to administer it to your rabbit. You could maybe ask if they could compound it into a liquid suspension for you to be able to administer it to your rabbit as a liquid. That would make it a bit easier for you. Or see if you can buy the Panacur liquid suspension or Panacur rabbit paste online from a reliable seller. You don't want to get some cheap knock off that isn't actually what it's supposed to be. Or you could see if your vet can order it in if they can only give you the pills and you think using the pills is going to be too complicated.

Fenbendazole is the drug name, so no it's not rabbit specific. It's just an antiparasitic that is used in horses, cows, dogs, rabbits, etc.

 

[JBun]

Does it say how many mg of fenbendazole are in the whole pill? And how much does your rabbit weigh?

 

[Haru the Lionhead]

Does it say how many mg of fenbendazole are in the whole pill? And how much does your rabbit weigh?

It doesn’t but it should be the right dosage, because the vet asked about her weight first, then told me to pick it up.
but is it okay if it’s not for five days?

 

[JBun]

I would ask the vet for two more pills and say you want to give for 5 days based on recommendations, but if the vet won't give you anymore pills so you can give it for 5 days then one more day 2 weeks later, then I would just do as your vet instructed. Give one dose today, then in two weeks give the last dose. Hopefully that will work. But if in several days after the first dose your bun is still having odd poop and gas issues, I would ring the vet again and this time say you want to do 5 days of treatment and get 3 pills to do it this time.

Or you said there was another vet that was going to prescribe pills as well. Could you ask them for a couple of the pills?

You can try putting the piece of the pill in a little banana to see if your bun will eat it. But I never had luck doing that with pills. I had to crush the pill into a powder, mix it with maple syrup, then draw it into an oral syringe and syringe it into my buns mouth.

 

[Haru the Lionhead]

I would ask the vet for two more pills and say you want to give for 5 days based on recommendations, but if the vet won't give you anymore pills so you can give it for 5 days then one more day 2 weeks later, then I would just do as your vet instructed. Give one dose today, then in two weeks give the last dose. Hopefully that will work. But if in several days after the first dose your bun is still having odd poop and gas issues, I would ring the vet again and this time say you want to do 5 days of treatment and get 3 pills to do it this time.

Or you said there was another vet that was going to prescribe pills as well. Could you ask them for a couple of the pills?

You can try putting the piece of the pill in a little banana to see if your bun will eat it. But I never had luck doing that with pills. I had to crush the pill into a powder, mix it with maple syrup, then draw it into an oral syringe and syringe it into my buns mouth.

I asked for extra but he didn’t answer, I will do as the vet said, and if it didn’t work I’ll go to the other vet, when should the gass and odd poops go back to normal if the pill worked?

 

[JBun]

You should probably see improvement in 1-3 days. if not I would call the other vet. Also, if there are a lot of the pinworms in him, when the medicine causes the worms to die off, it could possibly make him feel sick, which means he may stop eating. So keep an eye on his eating and if he's not eating well you may need to start syringe feeding.

 

[Haru the Lionhead]

I don’t want to give her extra without

You should probably see improvement in 1-3 days. if not I would call the other vet. Also, if there are a lot of the pinworms in him, when the medicine causes the worms to die off, it could possibly make him feel sick, which means he may stop eating. So keep an eye on his eating and if he's not eating well you may need to start syringe feeding.

When i saw the worm in the poop, I only saw it in two poops, can that mean that there isn't alot in her tummy? i gave her the medicine with banana, and now I’m poop police, every time she poops I would pick it up and take a closer look at it, no worms, and they look okay, only one poop was long and big. Also when i was picking the poops.. there were some oddly cold poops is that normal?

 

[Haru the Lionhead]

Okay i changed my mind, it’s been an hour since she took it and now the poops are FILLED with worms, is that a good sign?

 

[JBun]

Hurray! Yes that's really good. I mean not good that your bun does have worms, but good that you discovered the root of the problem and that the medicine is working. So yes, dead worms in the poop is very good. It means the medicine is working. You'll want to make sure to clean up really good today, to get rid of any eggs in the environment that could reinfest her.

 

[Haru the Lionhead]

Hurray! Yes that's really good. I mean not good that your bun does have worms, but good that you discovered the root of the problem and that the medicine is working. So yes, dead worms in the poop is very good. It means the medicine is working. You'll want to make sure to clean up really good today, to get rid of any eggs in the environment that could reinfest her.

When I’m removing the poops, the worms would stick to the glove, wouldn’t it stick on the hay as well¿ I’m worried about the cleaning, I cleaned the cage only with white vinegar, and I cleaned the litter box twice, and removed the blankets, but she’s pooping everywhere, is it okay to leave the poops?

 

[JBun]

I would wait until you mostly stop seeing worms in the poop then clean everything out, and you're done, that's it. You don't need to keep cleaning up poops.

And then you should be fine and shouldn't have to do a full clean again until 2 weeks when you treat her again. Then wait a few hours after the treatment to give it time to kill anything off, then clean everything one time And that should be it for the worms hopefully.

 

[Haru the Lionhead]

I would wait until you mostly stop seeing worms in the poop then clean everything out, and you're done, that's it. You don't need to keep cleaning up poops.

And then you should be fine and shouldn't have to do a full clean again until 2 weeks when you treat her again. Then wait a few hours after the treatment to give it time to kill anything off, then clean everything one time And that should be it for the worms hopefully.

Thank you very much for your help
I’ll post an update if anything changes

 

[Mei]

Im so happy you finally got down to what is going on!

 

[Haru the Lionhead]

I would wait until you mostly stop seeing worms in the poop then clean everything out, and you're done, that's it. You don't need to keep cleaning up poops.

And then you should be fine and shouldn't have to do a full clean again until 2 weeks when you treat her again. Then wait a few hours after the treatment to give it time to kill anything off, then clean everything one time And that should be it for the worms hopefully.

Okay I did not think that I would update this soon, this is the third day, I’m checking every poop one by one, I’m taking a closer look at them and opening them to see the inside, I don’t see any worms now, but the poops are still in different sizes and she’s still gassy, I’m getting confused, you said that if the poops didn’t go back to normal in three days that means that it didn’t work and that I should talk to the vet about giving her the medication for five days right? then you said that when I give her the second dose after two weeks I should give the treatment some time (to kill everything off) before I start cleaning right? that means that she won’t be 100% clear until the second dose right? does that mean that it’s okay for her to be gassy and has different poops until the second dose?

 

[JBun]

Since you aren't seeing any worms now, they should all be killed off. But it sounds like she had a heavy load of worms, so it might take her digestive tract a bit to heal and recover from that. I would give her a little time to recover, and just continue to keep an eye on her pooping and eating. Hopefully over the next few days you will see these things gradually improving.