nostrils swollen

Question
Dear Mr. Meyer,

I have a serious concern about a rabbit that was brought into our sanctuary.  I have far more experience with rabbits than our veterinarian does but I witnessed something tonight that I could not possibly understand.  A rabbit was brought to us that hadn't eaten for 24 hours.  I was able to force feed it some critical care and some pumpkin.  While I was examining it I noticed that his nostrils were literally sealed shut with what appeared to be a gummy type substance.  I was able to open the nostrils with hot water and by prying the hairs apart with tweezers.  Once the nostrils were open he began to become a little more active but had obvious GI symptoms as he was severely bloated. My assumption is that because he could not breath out of his nose he couldn't eat and is now in GI stasis. I really don't have very high hopes that he will survive but as of right now I have him in a small room with a warm air humidifier going.  I plan to force feed him every few hours until I can get him into our vet in the morning.  I have given him tramadol and sub-Q fluids as well.  My question is have you ever seen or had experience with a rabbit whose nostrils have glued shut?  The bunny has no signs of nasal discharge or snuffles.  It has been hot in our area the past few days but the owner is a very knowledgeable bunny owner and her bunnies live in a climate control environment.  I am truly stumped as to why this happened.  I have seen lots of bunnies with fur mats but never on their nose.  My personal opinion is that a deep nose culture would be a waste of money since there is no discharge.  I am really looking for anything that can cause nostrils to become clogged.  The bunny will be going to the vet in the morning but I already know what she will say.  Unfortunately where we live we do not have very many vets that are truly rabbit savvy.  We are forced to do research on our own and we are capable of doing pretty much anything they can do with the exception of spays and neuters.  If you have any clue what could be causing this we would truly appreciate your advice.

I thank you for your time and your dedication to helping rabbits.  

Sincerely,

Angela

Answer
Hi Angela,

well, if it's clear discharge, one thing that can happen is he can have an irritant either inhaled up the nose (dust, hay dust, etc) or some little physical piece of something in the nose that is causing a lot of mucus production.  Sometimes they actually choke on it.  we've seen it with one of ours - who got very very anxious for certain foods that were dusty - hay cube pieces, sometimes pellets, and she'd inhale dust into her nose and then cough and snort out a lot of clear mucus.

The other thing you can try is to give him an anti-inflammatory like a baby aspirin or metacam (not both), to see if that opens up his sinuses a bit so he can breath better.  He will mouth breathe if they are closed otherwise, but yes its not a great situation if he's breathing through his mouth.

If you can give him sub-q fluids and know how, do it.  50 mL is generally the max for 5 pounds and under, 100 ml for larger rabbits.  You want to make sure it's not cold solution going into him, it should be room temperature or a little warmer.  Also give metacam for pain (and reducing swelling as stated above) if you have some on hand, and if you have baby gas drops, you can give several (3-4) full dropper doses to help break up any gas in his system.  If you have any baytril on hand, one dose for him at this point wouldn't hurt either.

Chances are he may have some tooth root problems (front teeth) or possibly a blocked tear duct that got infected/overgrown by normal bacteria there.  If the mucus is clear it's more likely that, if it's cloudy it's a bacterial infection in the sinuses.  Both cases require at a minimum antibiotics effective at treating the particular bug.  When he is on antibiotics you will want to give him probiotics like Bene-Bac. Get the 15 mL feeder syringes, they are the best for bunnies.  They only need 1/2 of a unit dose (as marked on the syringe) per day.  The probiotics are in a slighty sweet fat based paste, which allows much of them to survive the acids in the bunny stomach.  You can get them at your vet or online places like Amazon.com.

If you have any equipment that can increase the oxygen around him, to tent him and increase the % of O2, do it.

Periodically try to clear the nostrils.  Save what you clean off for the vet to analyze.  They need to do a culture and sensitivity test to determine what antibiotic will work best and be safest for the bunny.

Also you can check the house rabbit society web site to see if there are any rabbit savvy vets around where you are:

www.rabbit.org/vets/vets.html

Above all pray for the little guy.  He's got a fighting chance now with you, just keep him in your prayers, I will too.