Hey there any bunny owners here that could help is with a newly obtained sick bun? Her name is Posey. 💕
We just got her on the 29th of May. We drove 6hrs away to pick her up so we stayed over night to leave the next day. This was our first time encountering a dwarf rabbit so we were pretty taken back by how tiny she was and therefore didn't realize that she was under weight until after we got to the hotel. She was eating and drinking fine. She did move a little whenever she breathed so we couldn't really tell if it was labored breathing or just how she moved bc of how small she is. She's 8 weeks old and could fit in the palm of your hand, and she wasn't showing any other signs of illness.
About half way through the drive she started having sneezing fits. As soon as we got home we set up a pen for her to live in to give her more ventilation since we thought it was allergies or something related due to the timing and that the bag of hay that came with her had a loooot of hay dust on the bottom. I even started whipping handfuls of hay outside in the air in an attempt to de-dust it before giving it to her.
As soon as we got home we set up a pen for her so that she'd have a more ventilated area and to watch how she progressed through the night. We also told the breeder what was going on and she told us to keep her updated. It seems she might be especially curious since she said she didn't have any ill rabbits at all, so we're wondering where she got it from. We do already have one boy at home but he's never been sick. Posey wasn't getting any better so we got her a vet appointment the very next day.
I'll be honest. The appointment felt a little rushed. It was obvious it was an Upper Respiratory Infection of some kind, but no testing at all was done. At the time we were just so relieved to have her checked out that I didn't think anything of it and was happy to get her on antibiotics. It was only after the fact that it felt weird and rushed. I even mentioned during the appointment that we were going to give her alfalfa hay for the higher calorie content. He told us not to as it can cause heightened calcium, which we were already aware of, but from what we understood and read this is only true for adults. Please let me know more info about this if you know! We read that alfalfa is great for young rabbits to help them gain weight and grow but bad for adults. If that's true, then it shows this vet might be a bit outdated in rabbit care.
Posey is on the antibiotics they gave us, which she's been on now for two days straight. We have never had an ill rabbit before so we have no detailed experience. Posey isn't getting better at all yet and we're worried she's possibly being treated for the wrong kind of uri bacterial strand. She's still sneezing, coughing, and breathing heavily. Since we've had her for a few days we also noticed she eats an alarming large amount of food. She acts like she's constantly starving.
Does anyone know how long it takes for antibiotics to actually show that it's working? In other words when should her symptoms start letting up? We're worried that they aren't working at all and that we should take her to another vet for a second opinion, but we're also worried we're acting too fast. But we also know that not acting fast enough could get her killed.
For now we read that humidity is really good so we plan on running a hot shower and sit in the bathroom with her for a while to loosen congestion. We also read that after it's a good idea to tickle her nose to force her to sneeze up what has loosened. We also read about getting low dose antihistamines to relieve symptoms.
It's all really weird because supposably the breeder didn't have any sick rabbits so where did this come from? We've been a little suspicious of her between Posey being thin and the fact that Posey actually isnt the bun we wanted to get in the first place. It was actually her brother, who died on the very night before we were going to pick him up. Supposably from digestives not agreeing with the weaning process. She let us see the other buns and we fell for Posey immediately. We thought it really weird that the breeder didn't even mention the brother was ill and didn't at least try and reschedule a pick up date to let him try and recover first.
Then the vet just feels really rushed and outdated so we're kind of stuck in a loop of who to believe and what should we do due to inexperience.
What should we do? 💦
Please boost this if you can! 💜 I will appreciate it so much!
