Floppy Bunny

Floppy bunny is a term used to describe a condition that can affect rabbits. Floppy bunnies are bunnies that have lost part or all control of their limbs, becoming floppy and limp (paralysis or weakness). This can take some time to occur, but usually happen suddenly with very little warning. Many rabbit owners have seen their bunny up and bouncing around happily in the morning, only to come back a few hours later and find their rabbit limp and paralysed on the floor unable to move. It is a terrifying ordeal for rabbit owners and rabbits alike, but it doesn’t always mean the end of your time with bun.

At Mae’s rabbitry, we’ve now dealt with floppy bunny on a few occasions. The first ever case was Lymeria, a bunny from our first litter that we’d kept as a pet and was very dear to us. She’d been housed with Tia and that afternoon was fine when we checked the two of them. We went out for the day, and came back later that night to find her lying limp and unable to move, seemingly dead. Her heart rate was slowed and she was barely breathing, so we raced her straight to the Murdoch Animal Hospital Emergency Vet. She was given drugs to help her heart rate and gut stasis, but at the time we couldn’t afford to keep her there overnight for the days it might have taken for her to get better, if she would and she was too unwell to go home. I made the hard decision to have her PTS.

The second case was later, when Lymeria’s brother and our other beloved pet Cookie was let out into his run for a bit of play. Luke called to me saying he was walking funny, and I came out to see that his back legs were dragging a little. We thought he might have fallen from the top level of his hutch and hurt his legs, but by the time we got him to the emergency vet again, he was completely floppy and we knew what it was. He was given drugs for gut stasis and sent home for us to nurse him back to health, but he barely made it through the night. He had lost all the energy to drink at that stage, and couldn’t swallow the Critical Care we tried to feed him. We were devastated.

By this point, we thought it might have been something that litter had in common, and we were worried for the others, but Fluffy and Buttercup, now Ninja and Biscuit, haven’t had any problems, and the vet said most rabbits can come down with it in Western Australia and there was little avoiding it, realistically. We were contemplating getting them all tested, but it was costly to get one rabbit tested, let alone the eight or so we had at the time. Then I had to deal with going into surgery, and times got a little tough both with money and in our personal lives.

The day I got out of hospital, three days after Lamby had given birth to her first litter, I came home to find her floppy in her hutch. Despite being a hobble in a wheelchair post-surgery, I somehow managed to pick up the rather heavy bunny (considering my state) from the very back of the deep nesting hutch whilst on my knees and race her to the back door. I have no idea how I managed it, but adrenaline probably had a lot to do with it.

My mum, who was driving me everywhere after the surgery, set up a carrier for the babies while I sorted out Lamby. Tymikka’s partner was home, and he helped feed Lamby until Tymikka returned from work, while I took the babies for hand feeding. It was hard, they were tiny and a 1ml syringe was too big. I had to use a paintbrush, and they weren’t happy to drink and only took a few drops at a time. Luckily, I soon found a foster mum with Betsy’s Bunny Rescue. These bubs have their own story, which you can read here, but for the moment we are focusing on Lamby.

Lamby never went to the vet, and we fed her Critical Care hourly day and night until she could lift her head and eat hay. Then she gobbled down endless hay, veggies and pellets, drinking water from a syringe. It seemed to last forever. I’d read that floppy bunny lasts between two and seven days, but Lamby’s lasted three weeks. Finally, when I was at wits end with the poor sleeps and post-surgery blues, I found her out of her box and floppy at the other end of the room, lying in a puddle of leaked water from the washing machine. I was confused, and put her back, but she soon jumped out again. She’d gotten some strength back.

Lamby was hard to nurse back to health. Her poo collected around her but, and with the liquid diet it soon turned to runs that were nearly impossible to wipe off. Her legs straightened out at weird angles and despite constantly trying to force her to remain on her feet in a normal position with all manner of props and bed shapes, she always ended up at awkward angles with badly conformed legs. She needed constant care, and it was a very, VERY stressful time for us.

But she came good. After a while she ended up standing on all four feet, and finally I picked her up and let her out of the box, and she ran across the dining room floor to our happy relief. She was on the mend, and soon completely back to her old self. She even went on to a new home, planning to join her sister Emmy once Emmy had raised her next litter (though that’s another story).

We had one other bunny that we suspected would get floppy, but it never reached full-blown floppy bunny. Sprinkle, when she was only little, one day just didn’t seem herself. She sat in the corner barely moving, didn’t want any milk, and seemed slightly floppy and just not right. She slept in our pockets in the warmth while we fed the other buns, and then we put her with Nox in the comfort of a cardboard box filled with hay and blankets, assuming we were putting her there to die. After barely a night, she came good, and with a couple of days we returned her to her siblings and she never had the issue again.

Now, after the Big Move and all the things to follow, we have three pet rabbits (and the three boys from Emmy’s litter still in search of homes). One of the pets, a dark Flemish X called Shady, had floppy bunny Monday morning. I was at the Royal Show working when Luke called me with the news, asking what to do. He didn’t want to rush her to the vet, because of what had happened with Cookie (who had been his). I told him to get a box ready all comfortable for her and to start the Critical Care diet. She was pooping and LOVED the Critical Care, so he took her to his mums and continued to nurse her. Within 36 hours she was sitting up and eating/drinking on her own. She had gone from completely flopped on her side, unable to lift her head, to sitting up and eating on her own within a day.

Each bunny is different, and each case of floppy bunny can present differently, with different onsets and recovery times. But there are things you can do to help, and hopefully give your bunny the chance to pull through and recover. If you can afford a vet, that’s your best choice. Unusual Pet Vets or other rabbit specialists are the best place to go, but any vet can give your rabbit the basic care needed. Vets are the only ones that can help if your rabbit has reached the gut stasis stage or has a dangerously low heart rate. But if your rabbit is still passing stools and able to eat, you may be able to care for them at home.

Find a safe place for your rabbit, like a cardboard box or container they can fit in easily. Soften their laying place. We lay hemp down on the bottom and cover it with a towel or soft blanket. Ensure there’s always hay available, so that if they feel like eating they still can. If necessary, supply a heat pad or hot water bottle nearby to keep the rabbit warm. Don’t place it directly next to the bunny or it risks overheating. We place it on the roof of the box under a towel, or just next to the box under the towel. It traps a little of the heat in without being too hot for bun.

Then get straight to the vet for Critical Care if you don’t have some already. Murdoch Animal Hospital stocks some for sale, and they’re also 24/7 so you can grab some at any time of day or night. But it’s also a very necessary item to have handy if you own a rabbit, as it can be essential if your bunny stops eating for whatever reason. The Critical Care is difficult to use, but you get the hang of it. Here’s some hints to help you figure it out quicker:

- Critical Care requires a wider syringe than hand feeding and other medications. Try a 10ml syringe to fit the thicker solution out of the nozzle at the end.

- Make more than necessary and keep a clothe ready to squirt the Critical Care into. Despite a 10ml syringe, the formula is thick and chunky and WILL get stuck. You don’t want to force it only to have a HUGE chunk spurting into your buns mouth. If it starts getting stuck, suck up some air back into the syringe to help get rid of the blockage, and if that doesn’t work spurt the formula into a cloth until its unblocke, rather than your rabbits mouth.

- Use a funnel to get the formula into the syringe. If you don’t have a funnel handy, use a piece of paper rolled up into a funnel shape for a quick and simple fix.

- Put some water into the syringe, then add the formula, then top up the rest of the water. I found this easier than trying to measure into a separate container, mix, then pour into a syringe. This way you can see the measurements on the syringe and I found it easier to measure this way. Mix the formula once its in the syringe with a toothpick or chopstick (or I used a 1ml syringe because I had one at hand).

- Go slow, even if bunny seems to want the formula. When they’re full, they’ll just suddenly stop swallowing and often hold the formula in the mouth until you’re panicking that they are going to suffocate. Small amounts mean this is less likely.

- Boil the water. Even if you use cool boiled water, its safer to ensure the water is boiled as this removed or kills bacteria and other contaminants.

Be patient. Feed your bunny hourly during the day, if you can, and then try for hourly the first night. It’s important you get some sleep too, and for the first few days it seems impossible to keep waking up. I found I eventually adjusted to the weird schedule, but if its easier, push the night feedings back to two-hourly, or if your bun is doing well, three-hourly. Then feed more during the day when you’re awake.

Take your bun to work with you and slide them under your desk, if that’s possible, or in a quiet room. Find naps during the day when you can, to compensate for missed sleep at night. If there’s another person in your house that can help, take it in turns to feed the bun, doing shifts so that one of you can get a full sleep while the other feeds, and vice versa. If you normally sleep together, sleep separately during shifts so that you aren’t waking each other with every feeding (and eliminating the purpose of taking shifts).

Management of floppy bunny can sometimes be enough, but sometimes treatments are needed. In our case, we had so many floppy bunnies that we thought the risks of treating outweighed the risks of not treating. We purchased a large bottle of sheep Panacur drench (a sheep wormer) from a local stock feed. This can also be bought online. We wormed every bun we had every day for a month, and now worm three-monthly. Some people prefer to worm for only two weeks initially and then only every six months, others will worm monthly after the initial dose. The worming can be dangerous to the gut flora of the rabbits, which is why rabbits should generally be left alone, but we didn’t want any more floppy bunnies and chose to be preventative rather than act after floppy struck.

Panacur can treat bunnies that are floppy due to the parasite E. cuniculi, which is a prion disease that effects the brain much like a worm. But other things can cause floppy bunny, such as underlying diseases or a traumatic incident. For Lamby, she gave birth and then before I discovered her floppy a huge lightening storm struck. We think the mix of fear and the stress of birth and lactating was what brought on her floppy, while we wonder if perhaps some of our other rabbits had E. cuniculi. Lilly had a head tilt that is often associated with E. cuniculi, and perhaps that is why her daughter Sprinkle got a mild form of floppy bunny as neither had yet been treated. Either way, many things can cause the disease, and only testing can give us some ideas.

But there are ways to help prevent floppy bunny. Cleaning up after your rabbit is a huge help, as many issues can be caused by rabbits ingesting urine or stool from a sick rabbit, or even from themselves. Keeping hutches flyscreened and mosquito proof can help against many diseases. Keeping a new bunny quarantined prior to introducing to other bunnies to ensure no symptoms are shown of certain illness. Buying new hutches rather than second hand hutches used by other animals and treating all hutches new and old with veterinary grade disinfectant such as F10 prior to use (and during routine cleans).

If your bunny does get floppy, we are here to help. Facebook groups and pages can be a big support as well, and your local specialist vet is the first place to turn to in any rabbit illness. Let us know if you have a floppy bunny story or a method of helping with floppy bunny syndrome that we can post here to help others.

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