Buffy, short for Mrs. Buffington, is a 2-year old Buff Orpington. She lives with another hen named Tuffy, who often hangout with Einstein, their cat friend. Julie keeps them outside in her fenced in backyard and locks them up every evening in their coop. She absolutely adores her little hens and enjoys watching them forage and play around in the garden daily. Buffy, Tuffy and Einstein One morning in June, when Julie let the girls out of their coop she noticed Buffy was walking a bit funny, and had a lot of feces stuck to her vent feathers. Upon closer inspection, she noticed that Buffy’s abdomen was very swollen (why she
This is just a quick post to answer some of the questions which may arise from the one made earlier, advising against using Rear Guard.
It is a tragedy when a beloved bunny suffers, and it hits us particularly hard when we believe it has been something seemingly easy preventable. Unfortunately, fly strike isn’t one of those things: even despite our best efforts, there’s often nothing we can do to save our friend.
If you lost a bunny to fly strike, my heart goes out to you.
It’s 2:06 in the morning right now, so I’ll be very brief and I apologise in advance for any typos, errors etc.
Flies are a menace. We're also in the UK, and we get SO. MANY. FLIES. We have tight-fitting fly screens on all windows and doors, UV zappers, and fly paper around the house. Mike changes litter trays almost daily. Yet the annoying sods are still here! We couldn't get rid of them even though the winter: the house was very warm because we have a couple of log fires.
My experience is that healthy rabbits don't get fly strike. Rabbits most prone to it are those with mucky bums due to tummy problems, wet undercarriage due to urinary or renal issues, those not able to groom themselves properly due to dental pain, missing incisors, or mobility problems (such as arthritis).
In any case, whether they're fully healthy and mobile or not, I would definitely advise to check them daily. Fly strike can be very sudden. Fly eggs are not obvious, and when are spotted, it is usually after they have hatched and the rabbit is in considerable discomfort.
In my experience, vets often advise to PTS when the rabbit can and will recover. So, don’t be in a hurry to say goodbye. I’ll try to write more on this sometime soon. Rabbits’ skin heals amazingly quickly, and when I was advised to have Rita PTS and didn’t take up the option, the exotic vet who recommended it was convinced it was the only option and said irreparable damage had been done. Rita healed in less than a week.
We've had many wet, mucky, continuously washed, vulnerable bunnies who all managed to avoid fly strike. I think what helped was the UV fly zappers which were installed above their cages, and those are very effective. Fly-papers are even more effective, Mike says.
Keep the rabbits super-clean and their litter trays fresh and dry.
Use appropriate litter. The litter which works best, we found, is pure straw/hay pellet. Don’t be tempted with medicated / insecticide-treated litter, etc.. Something such as this or this works really well.
Other than keeping the trays clean and the rabbits dry, I don't think there's any way to minimise the risk of fly strike, but even then, you cannot guarantee you can avoid it.
A net over a cage is a great idea: but flies can get through a sealed suitcase! With the net, they'll lay their eggs as close to the net as possible, and then maggots get through and head for the bunny. So, a net is just a delay on their route, not an obstacle.
With our disabled bunnies, I always dried them thoroughly—which is SO difficult with rabbit fur being so fine. But I found that medicated Cuticura talc speeds up the drying process greatly. I can’t be sure, but maybe the talc being medicated, it helped prevent fly strikes in those vulnerable rabbits? I don't know ...
The other product we use on vulnerable bunnies to repel flies is Beaphar Fly-Free spray, £3.54 per 150ml bottle from Vet UK. The active ingredient is permethrin (5mg/ml), which is practically non-toxic via the oral route, Apparently, permethrin begins to cause neurological side-effects in rabbits when ingested at doses exceeding 400mg/kg, which is practically unrealistic when using the above spray solution, as it'd amount to 80ml of the liquid per kg of live body weight.
Please let me know if there are any problems with the above. I think some links may not work. I’m too exhausted to check now, but I’ll look again at some point after I wake up today.
Thank you
Oksana @ HE
This post has been made possible by the generousity of our patrons. By supporting us, you help us continue working for the good of bunnies and bring you more content you will enjoy.
Helicopter Ears | MINIMISE THE RISK OF FLY STRIKE IN SUMMER | Un-proofed, un-edited, unchecked draft. Needs work. Dead links corrected. | v.0.2 | 18-JUL-2018
Summer. Rabbits. Flies. More flies. Fewer rabbits. Nightmare. Then, Rear Guard comes to rescue. Vets recommend it. Rabbit welfare organisations praise it. Rabbit owners swear by it. Rabbits are queueing to have their fluffy bottoms lathered up. Problem solved.
I used Rear Guard in our early rabbiting days. The rabbit in question, Mushka, passed from unknown causes, and I can’t confirm or deny the link. I never thought of it at any depth, to be honest. We kept supplies of it at Helicopter Ears, and we’ve had many rabbits at risk of fly strike, but we never resorted to using Rear Guard.
And yesterday I was glad we didn’t.
If you want to hear what I think yet gruesomeness is not your thing, I have an abridged version for you:
Don't use it.
If like me, you are the sceptical kind, read on.
Today, I chatted with one of our long-term supporters. About rabbits, as usual. I said how annoying it is when rabbits are diagnosed with 'gut stasis,' because in my experience, stasis is never an illness but rather a symptom of one: something causes it, and taking gut motility stimulants when a rabbit is in renal failure is akin to giving painkillers for a headache when there's a brain tumour to blame, which is when she told me that on one occasion, three of her rabbits went into stasis after they were treated with Rear Guard.
Hmm, that's interesting, I thought.
The rabbits became ill, she said, all at once, on the night they had been treated with Rear Guard, within hours after application. At first, they lost appetite, and by the morning, she had to take them back to the vet: they produced no droppings during the night.
The vet was not in any hurry to blame the miraculous and much-sought-after product which saved many lives (and lined many pockets) for the mysterious illness, but the rabbit owner was not quite so sure: three of her eight rabbits were ill following its application, and apart from Rear Guard, nothing had been different in their daily routine. A bit of a coincidence, no? I think so.
Some background information
Before we go on, this is what you must know about the lady, about her rabbits, about me, and about Rear Guard.
The lady is a super-experienced bunny-owner and diligent as can be. I didn't ask who applied Rear Guard, she or the vet, because I have no reason to think she would apply the product incorrectly, and there's not much room for error, frankly. It's foolproof.
She is sure that all of the rabbits had been healthy prior to the application.
All opinions, assumptions, guesses and any errors in calculations which follow are my own; the rabbit owner does not necessarily share my views or doubts her vet, Novartis or anyone who may recommend any of its products, including Rear Guard. I'm the one causing all the trouble here, and I'm the only one to kick, OK?
As it happens, Rear Guard does come with a warning. The manufacturer's label states a "temporary reduction in appetite" is possible (I can't recall the exact wording, as I binned our supplies, but it's something along those lines and not anything worth getting pedantic about).
Obviously, the less they eat, the less they poop, hence the stasis. Worrying and all that ... These paranoid rabbit owners, huh? Nothing but trouble, me included. And when it comes to me, you won't find much more paranoid than that! And, as I always wondered how this marvellous, expensive, and widely-recommended by the most credible and trusted of sources product works, anyway, and because I adhere to the view that a reduction in appetite is never just a reduction in appetite, Google, here we come!
My unscientific research
The first thing Dr Google spat out was the active ingredient in Rear Guard being cyromazine. According to not very many sources (1, 2, 3) (patience is not my strong point) I had the stomach to read, the acute LD (lethal dose) for rabbits (oral ingestion) is 1467 mg/kg. The solution is 6% w/v, meaning there is 60mg of cyromazine in 1 ml, and there's 25 ml in a bottle, which makes it 1500mg cyromazine per bottle, which, as we have learned, is sufficient to dispatch a 1 kg rabbit (with certainty).
Just so we are clear, LD is 'Lethal Dose,' meaning the subject will certainly die after ingesting that amount, while LD50 means half will certainly die. That is my personal, unscientific definition. Smaller "doses" (I don't know ... Do we "dose" poisons?) will more likely than not result in adverse effects.
But we're not feeding it to them, right?
Let's not forget that rabbits' faces spend a lot of time around their bottoms, both to groom and to consume caecotrophs.
But surely they can't ingest enough to cause harm, right?
That would depend on the size of a rabbit, how clean they like their bottom, and how thorough they are at cleaning it, I guess.
But why guess when we have science, right?
Finally! My favourite part. This science says ingesting 25 mg/kg/day (that's 0.4 ml's worth, I think!) or more causes rabbits to die from (brace yourself):
heart failure
pneumonia-pleuritis
lung congestion and oedema
other causes not possible to establish. Hmm.
That's just 0.4 ml: you don't have to drink the bottle. The bottle would be sufficient to knock out 62.5 kg's worth of rabbits. (Now, if you're Paddington, that's 7 of you. If you're Frankie, that's 62.5 Frankies. And that’s a lot of Frankies. We don’t even have that many.)
I didn't click on all the links to see how long it took them to die, but probably, not very. Anyway, moving on swiftly.
At just 10mg/kg/day, rabbits suffered a reduction in weight, and pregnant does had miscarriages. Male fertility was also affected.
Graphic depictions of fetus malformations and birth defects featured in every paper I came across, and the didn’t seem to be dose-related:
multiple head deformities
cleft palate
hydrocephalus (for those wondering what it is)
spina bifida (not very nice)
a variety of hernias (diaphragmatic and umbilical)
vertebral and rib anomalies
tarsal flexure
absent kidney and ureter
And, as we read on, we finally learn reduction in faecal excretion was reported in "treated" groups. Ah, that's why the manufacturer warns about the appetite reduction!
Now, to the positives
I'm sure there are other "effects" to marvel at, but I'd had enough at that point and decided to focus on the positives:
No malformations were observed in kits dying at days 4-28. (Never mind they're dead.)
No changes in behaviour were noted.
Cyromazine is thought to be only very slightly cancerogenic. (Phew!)
But the best thing is: it prevents maggots from hatching ...
... for 10 glorious weeks ...
... at a mere cost of £30 or so ...
... and minor indigestion.
Ah, that's how it works! Now I understand!
How it works
It's so freaking toxic even maggots don't survive in it.
My guess is, assuming a rabbit ingests this product, he will quite likely be somewhat ill. Possibly, very. Maybe, dead.
My guess is Novartis didn't follow up on the subjects of their "study" for long enough to know what possible consequences could result from the application of their product. ( I was so sick of it all by this point, and I didn’t go into too much depth, so I must admit, I didn’t go into it in too much depth, but upon a quick scan, it did appear 6 rabbits were studied for 21 days. Wow. )
My guess is if there are no immediately obvious adverse effects, they are more likely than not yet to come.
I'm not a vet, and my degrees are not in pharmaceuticals, so the opinions expressed are probably just guesses, anyway, and you should feel free to dismiss them as nonsense. If a reputable source you trust recommends Rear Guard, by all means, totally go ahead and use it. As to me, not being a huge fan of animal testing, I shan't experiment on our herd. Call me paranoid if you like.
If you must use it
The good news is: There's no need to pay over the odds!
Cyromazine is an AGRICULTURAL PESTICIDE, and as such, it very reasonably priced. A quick Google search will get you a litre of this miracle-drug for just $3 (that’s right, just three bucks). And if you think a litre is 40 x 25 ml bottles, wait until I tell you, it's undiluted. I'm not gonna reach for my calculator here, you can do your own math, but that's AHELLAFALOT OF RABBITS you can treat.
Something tells me that Novartis pricing Rear Guard handsomely at nearly £30 per 25 ml, and Rear Guard being nothing more than a common pesticide of a very thin dilution, we're being taken for a ride.
It comes with a health warning, though: you absolutely must follow the manufacturer's instructions and wash your hands after use! Cyromazine is toxicology category III, you know?
Which conveniently leads me to my next point:
Come on, Novartis ... I think a small label adjustment is in order:
For ideas on how to minimise the risk of fly strike in summer, please check this post, and don’t forget to share your experience and advice.
This post has been made possible by the generousity of our patrons. By supporting us, you help us continue working for the good of bunnies and bring you more content you will enjoy.
Helicopter Ears | REAR GUARD: EVEN MAGGOTS DON’T SURVIVE IT | Formatting changes | v.1.2 | 18-JUL-2018
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Fly strike is a common, extremely distressing and often fatal disease which predominantly occurs in warm weather. It's caused when rabbits develop a sore area, usually around the rear end or as a result of faecal and/or urine soiling. This attracts flies which lay eggs in the sores or on the soiled fur. These eggs then hatch into maggots that eat away at the tissues in the surrounding area.
The problem, if left untreated, can get so bad that the maggots reach the rabbit's abdomen, causing so much suffering that the rabbit has to be put to sleep. If you spot any signs of fly strike on your pet, such as eggs or maggots, seek urgent veterinary advice.
You can prevent fly strike by:
Keeping housing clean and dry.
Feeding the correct high fibre diet to avoid diarrhoea.
Checking your pet thoroughly for signs of illness, injury or abnormal behaviour every day, and in warm weather checking the fur and skin around your pets' rear end and tail area, at least twice a day.
Removing any wet or soiled bedding every day.
Keeping rabbits active and healthy - obese rabbits may be too big to clean themselves effectively or to eat their caecotrophs (which then build up around their rear end).
Using suitable insecticides and insect repellents.
Most potential health problems can be avoided or treated if caught early. If you think your rabbits are showing any of these symptoms, it's critical that you seek veterinary advice immediately. Remember - it's your legal duty to protect your rabbits from pain, suffering, injury and disease. It is worth considering getting your rabbits insured - just in case they ever do need medical treatment - as the cost can soon add up!
