Ultimate guide: Healthcare for rabbits
Preventative health care is the best way to keep your pet bunny healthy and happy. Because rabbits are prey animals, they generally don’t advertise their symptoms of sickness or distress until their condition is severe.
As their caretaker, it is up to you to be on the lookout for signs of illness in your pet. Over the years of raising rabbits, I’ve found a great system that works for me in taking control of the general healthcare for rabbits.
To keep my rabbits in optimal health, I do small daily health checks to make sure I’m not missing anything.
Let’s do a quick rundown of ways you too can perform health checks on your rabbits.
Healthcare checklist
Because behavioral and mental health is just as important as physical health, it’s ideal that your rabbit be handled everyday. This is when I spend a few minutes looking over each of my rabbits.
To keep things simple, I start examining my rabbit from nose to tail.
Let’s get into the ultimate guide: healthcare for rabbits
Nose
Here we want to make sure that the nose is clear and not draining. A draining nose can be a sign of a respiratory illness. Respiratory illnesses are generally but not always caused by unsanitary housing or rabbits living in close quarters and improper air flow.
Eyes
Look over the eyes to ensure that they are clear, clean and bright . Same as the nose, draining eyes can be due to respiratory factors but also dental problems.
A tooth infection or abscess can present itself in the form of goopy, runny eyes.
If you notice any dullness or cloudiness in the eyes it can be a sign of blindness.
Draining eyes can also be something simple like a scratch. Just like we get eyelashes in your eyes, rabbits can get little hairs, pieces of hay or whatever else in there too.
Grab a soft warm washcloth and gently wipe away any yucky things in the eye area.
Ears
Take a quick look down into the ear canal of your bunny’s ears. What you’re looking for are ear mites. Rabbis can be very susceptible to ear mites which look like little black dust spots. These nasty things can cause skin irritation. You might notice your bunny shaking its head or scratching its ears.
Teeth
This is a harder one to check on when performing healthcare for rabbits. Most people don’t realize that rabbits have a full set of teeth, 28 to be exact.
What you can see easily are the first 6. The top incisors and bottom incisors and the peg teeth sitting behind the top teeth.
What’s so important to check on is that the teeth are aligning, top over bottom.
Rabbit’s teeth never stop growing throughout their life. They stay an appropriate size due to grinding.
Misaligned teeth can be caused by trauma to the mouth or not having access to things to chew on.
Rabbits can easily hurt themselves if they have a habit of chewing at wire or the sides of their hutch. A preventative measure you can take is to provide the rabbits with lots of distractions. Ideas can be blocks of untreated wood or fruit tree branches, pumice stone blocks, hearty, fibrous vegetables, and lots of Timothy Hay.
Skin
I like to quickly blow down the spine of the rabbit to expose the hair shaft down to the skin. From here you can check to see that the fur is not matted or that there are no fur mites visible. Just like ear mites, skin mites will look like there is dirt all over the skin. Check all over the bunny for fleas and ticks as they are something that can get out of hand quite quickly if not treated.
Although rabbits don’t like water, if need be you can bath your rabbit to remove mite dust and fleas. Be sure to not do this often as it disrupts the natural oils on the rabbits skin. Keep the rabbit warm and wrapped up in a towel to dry. Avoid high powered hair dryers as rabbits shock very easily.
If you have long haired rabbits, use a metal comb brush to loosen any matted fur. Avoid wire slick brushes. Rabbits skin is delicate and it can cause damage.
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Tail
Some rabbits are messier than others. I have one bunny that can never keep herself clean and others that I rarely ever have to do anything. Rabbits are obviously covered in fur including the genitals. Because of this, check to make sure there isn’t any matting or irritation in the nether regions.
Does and Bucks all have vents on either side of their “area” . Use a Q- tip or a wet wipe to clear out that area. This is probably the grossest thing.
Nails
Just like dogs and cats, rabbits need their nails trimmed too. I like to purchase cat nail clippers because they are so small and do the job perfectly.
For preventative care, trim your rabbits nails at least once a month. People make the mistake of letting the nails get too long before trimming. What happens is the nail bed or the “quick” gets longer and longer. If kept short, its keeps the nail bed at a reasonable length.
Desensitizing your rabbits
Doing this everyday is so beneficial to your bunny because not only are they being touched and loved one they are being desensitized to having their face, body and feet handled. This will help make your bunny more apt to play with you and generally be a better experience. If the time came for vet care, your rabbits wouldn’t be so traumatized to be handled.
Daily health care checks give your bunny space to be comfortable being touched all over and less stressed while performing grooming tasks.
Emergency Healthcare
When first getting your bunny, you’ll want to research and find an exotic Veterinarian. You’ll be surprised that very few actually service rabbits.
In an emergency situation, the last thing you want to do is scramble to find a vet in your area that is accepting new patients and even more importantly taking bunnies.
Signs of Immediate distress
In the case of these particular rabbit emergencies, it is always good to prepare yourself for the possibility of the bunny not making it. Like I mentioned earlier, rabbits don’t show certain signs of sickness until the very end, making them difficult to treat in an emergency.
A rabbit in an emergency situation may experience a number of things.
Lock jaw, bloat/gastritis, lethargy, heat stroke, shock, and many more.
Ways to Avoid health issues in rabbits
The best form of medicine and care for any rabbit is preventative care. Although rabbits generally are easy to raise, they can become very fragile. The best thing to do for your furry friend is to provide adequate shelter and housing, a healthy well balanced diet, exercise, and positive reinforcement and consistent socialization.
Making sure your rabbit has a clean environment is crucial in the fact that your bunny won’t be exposed to as many respiratory infections, flies and other pests, and skin irritants.
Feed your bunny a well balanced mix of pellets, Timothy hay, leafy greens, vegetables and fruits.
One mistake a lot of people make is feeding a rabbit a whole lot of one particular thing. This can easily cause your rabbit to bloat. Because of their sensitive digestive system it’s always best to introduce new fruits and vegetables one at a time and in small amounts. This will help avoid the mistake of shocking their little body.
Foods like brassicas (broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower) easily produce gases and shouldn’t or rarely be fed to rabbits.
Sweet fruit or carrots should ideally be fed only as treats to avoid diabetes or obesity.
And lastly a rabbit should always have access to an abundance of fresh Timothy hay. Not only does it provide fiber for their digestion it helps grind down their teeth for good dental alignment.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, always be mindful of your rabbit’s behavior. As you become acquainted with your pet, you’ll be able to pick up on behavioral signs much sooner than physical ones. Practice good preventative care by setting up your rabbits for success with a healthy diet and exercise. Rabbits have mental health problems too so provide them with friendship and love and they will be just fine.
Rabbits truly are one of the best and easiest pets to own. I may be totally biased but it’s so true .
– the ultimate guide: healthcare for rabbits
