Posted by roo on May 17th, 2008 — Posted in Bunnies, Dee Dee
I had to come back to Huntsville to take care of the animals here, but it is just a one night stop. Arrived this evening, will depart for South Carolina again as soon as I wake up tomorrow morning. Dee Dee’s cria has not been born yet, but she is so huge… oh my gosh. I am surprised it didn’t arrive days ago, and am hoping that it won’t arrive as I am on my way back, for I’ll miss the birth!
And sadly… no babies for Sienna. *sigh* She probably lost them when she was constricted in her mat due to stress. She’s ready to be bred, she tells me, teasing Jasper and laying down for him outside of his cage. He wants no part of it, being neutered, and gets cranky with her. Sienna has lost quite a bit of weight over the past few weeks, but has recently renewed her interest in ‘good’ food (not just greens) and I’m feeding her Critical Care twice a day. As soon as I feel she’s back to a normal weight, I’ll try breeding her to Nomi again.
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Posted by roo on May 11th, 2008 — Posted in Bunnies
~ SIENNA ~
Sienna’s foot, which had quite a few patches of deep purple and black, seems to drastically have gotten even moreso overnight. Over the past 12 days it has been gradually getting stiffer and stiffer, but yesterday it was just downright HARD, it felt like I was washing a stick that had fallen off a tree. The dead tissue at the constriction site is lifting off even further, but I still cannot determine what exactly is happening there.
Yesterday morning I discovered that Sienna had ‘built’ a roomy nest in the hay that I am currently using as bedding in her cage. It was merely a big hole she had dug in a corner, nicely pushing the hay up the two sides of the cage to make walls for warmth. I took this as a sign that I could put the nest box in, which I did.
She has developed an uncertainty of me, understandly so seeing every time I take her out of her cage it’s to wash her leg, or stab her with yet another needle. And the past few days I’ve had to administer mylicon drops twice a day to treat the gas in her belly, so I sneak in a bit of critical care formula too. Now when she sees me coming, she hunkers down in the hay and remains like that, no matter how softly I stroke her head and talk to her, and I have to literally leave the room and peek around the door unseen in order to observe her ‘true’ behaviour.
So I stood and watched her, from a distance, as she left her ‘nest’ and proceeded to check out the nesting box. To my surprise, she jumped in very smoothly, sniffed around a bit, laid down for a moment, then jumped back out. No problems with her bad leg whatsoever! It had concerned me that the lip at the opening of the box may be a hindrance to her coming and going from the nest box, but she handled it just fine.
She didn’t eat much yesterday. It has become a comforting sight to glance over and each time see her chewing on something, be it hay, or pellets, or greens… a perpetual snacking and grazing. But yesterday, nothing. A few nibbles of clover and dandelion and that was it. Just sitting in her self built nest. This morning she’s chirpy and alert again, so I’m not sure what to think. I have noticed that she’s been losing weight - I can clearly feel her bones through her wool. Time to take her intake of food to a more controlled level, and I will give her a full feeding of critical care once a day until I see her getting back to her normal weight.
~ JASPER ~
He’s such a lovable rabbit! With all the extra pampering and what not since his abcess removal, he’s become quite the talker. I’ve also noticed he’s somewhat obsessive compulsive and will complain loudly (almost a humming sound, derived from his grunting, but used almost in a conversational manner - quite interesting and fun) if you put his food dish in a different place after filling it. He makes the same sounds when you open his cage door, and will follow your hand around until you stop and scratch his head. Very demanding *grin*
Yesterday it was time to take the drain tube out. I’ve been debating in my head whether to use a solution of 50/50 peroxide and water to flush out the abcess, or a betadine/water solution. Peroxide softens hard rabbit pus and allows it to drain, betadine just cleans. Peroxide CAN damange healthy tissues, betadine does not. Any pus left in a rabbit abcess will cause the abcess to reform. The vet was not supportive of me using the peroxide wash, although several rabbit breeders have told me this is their method and it works well. In the end I decided I would do three days of peroxide wash to clean out any remaining pus that may be in there, then switch to betadine to keep it clean until it heals.
I dropped off a wonderful document from U-Mass concerning a 15 year study of the use of bicillin in rabbits for severe abscess management to my vet yesterday. It contains case studies of rabbits that were put on bicillin and how it cured them of ALL abscesses… and most importantly, kept them away. The vet said she had no problem putting Jasper in bicillin, and that she was thankful for the document - she states herself that she does not know a great deal about ‘exotics’ and that it’s still a learning curve for her.
Jasper was very active and happy this morning, bouncing about his cage. I noticed that he’d been eating pellets, so hopefully he’ll soon be back to unassisted eating.
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Posted by roo on May 9th, 2008 — Posted in Bunnies
It is amazing that Sienna has not touched her water bottle in almost two weeks. I thought recently that she was using it again, but she must have been brushing up against it because no more water has lowered itself out of there. Her veggies are served drenched in water, and recently floating in a good inch of water, to try and get liquids into her. She’s peeing quite a bit, so she must be doing okay. It’s a very dark orange though, almost frightening, with quite a bit of solid residue. Considering her diet is mainly greens and nothing else, this is not so surprising. She’s nibbling at her pellets again though, I’ve noticed, so perhaps that will help her get back on track. One thing I was not pleased to see today was her lips and gums.
I was giving her some infant mylicon drops seeing her belly has gotten into a regular nightly growling routine now, mixed with a little left over critical care that I’ve been feeding Jasper, when I noticed with surprise that her lips seemed blue… or purple. In fact, so did her tongue. Alarmed, I gave her the medicine and put her back in her cage, then looked online to see what these symptoms were. Gosh. Pregnancy toxemia? She seemed fine aside from that strange discolouring, so I doubted that one. Heart problems? Stress? Well yes… those could be possible causes. I’ll keep a close eye on her. Her babies are due on Tuesday, she had better not give up on me now!
While bathing her foot today I scanned it closely, as usual. The same steady toe rotting and mummification up to the constriction point. I leaned in closer to study the constriction point. Oh wow… something is happening there. Tissues separating, but it’s hard to tell if it’s just her hardened fur and hide beginning to come off, or whether her body is beginning to shed the leg.
I took a couple of pictures, but I must warn you, they are not for the squeamish. Click here if you would like to take a peek at the foot’s progress.
The past few days I’ve laid my hand palm up under her lower abdomen as she lays down on the bathroom counter after I’ve bathed her foot. I’ve felt no babies moving yet. I don’t palpate, I just merely have my hand laying flat under her. Today I could distinctly feel bulges, about the size of a golf ball each, perhaps a little smaller. Very gently here and there I felt them writhe… but are they babies, or are they her imbalanced digestive organs? *sigh* Please, after all this, don’t let her have lost her babies! Let them arrive safe and sound on Tuesday!
In preparation for the babies, I made Sienna a nest box today. I made it a little larger than I would have if she’d not been afflicted by this injury, this way she has a little room to move around the babies as she hops a little awkwardly on only three legs.
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Posted by roo on May 8th, 2008 — Posted in Dee Dee, Dominic
Jason reported from Aiken last night that Dominic’s ear is healing well. Just a little bump, apparently, where the abcess was, and still a small amount of scabbing on the inside of his ear. Thank goodness for that - that could have been some nasty business!
He also took the opportunity while he was there to check on Dee, and said that she has grown much larger since the last time he saw her. In fact, standing still to observe her quietly as she went from food dish to food dish just in case there were any left over morsels, he was able to see the cria moving.
It’s getting close… 8 days till she delivers her cria from AGO Gustav. I am both terribly nervous and very excited. On Sunday I’ll be leaving Huntsville with Jasper and Sienna in tow, to head to Aiken so that I can be there when the cria comes. Or at least, be there shortly afterwards to take lots of pictures of our new arrival.
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Posted by roo on May 7th, 2008 — Posted in Bunnies
Posted to the allthingsangora group at Yahoo this evening:
“It’s been what, a week now, since I first mentioned the swelling under Jasper’s jaw, and Kim diagnosed it as an abcess, which was correct. I commenced injections of penicillin every other day, even though I knew it could be weeks before seeing any results.
Unfortunately, Jasper continued to get more sullen until today, when he also went off his food. Oh, wonderful! Sienna is already taking up so much of my time with her constriction-injured foot, and now my favourite rabbit was going down. I lifted up his chin to see how the abcess was doing, and was shocked that over the course of just a couple of days, it had more than doubled in size! It had to come off, and come off NOW. But of course I know that an abcess on a rabbit is not like an abcess on other animals, in that it doesn’t contain liquid pus that you can simply drain out, this is an almost solid substance that needs to be surgically removed. I had no choice but to take him to the vet, because I was very afraid that if I left it till tomorrow, it would be too late.
Off to the vet we went. They stuck him in an acrylic box, similar to a small fishtank and gassed him so that he’d go to sleep. The vet worked on him for half an hour while I waited in the waiting room, and when she finally called me in, explained that the abcess had not looked good and that she really did not know how well it was going to heal up. Apparently it had eaten a nice sized hole in his jaw, and yes, she felt that it stemmed from a tooth root infection. I had asked her merely to lance the abcess, but she had to perform on the spot mini-surgery to clean it all out. She had also inserted a drain, and then stitched him up. My gosh… there must be 6 or 7 stitches in there, that poor rabbit! In three days time I have to cut open the very last stitch, the one that holds the drain tube in place, and remove the tube. Then, in 10 days, he has to go back in so she can take a look at it. The whole procedure cost me $120.
He’s on a daily round of injectable penicillin now, the same as Sienna, and tonight I forced some Critical Care into him after I let him rest for a couple hours after his surgery. I am glad that I ordered this stuff in case Sienna went off her food, but never imagined I would need it for Jasper! I brought him out into the living room, where he hung out with me on the couch, and this did him a world of good. He was much more alert and active this evening, even doing a little trick he learned. When I snap my fingers together softly and repeatedly, it means ‘come here and I’ll scratch your head’. The cats know what this means, and so does Jasper, who will grunt and then either jump at me, or come running, depending on how far away he is, and rest his chin on the couch in front of me in the submissive position so that I can rub and scratch his head. It is so cute to see him do this (we were just talking about agility training in rabbits!), and a relief to see him do this tonight, which means his spirits are up.”
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