my rabbit passed away yesterday

Question
Lisa,
Yesterday my rabbit passed away. She was a female, dutch rabbit. Today is Thursday. Sunday I went out to feed her in the morning, and I noticed she had a wound on her back end, and there were maggets crawling in and out of it. I ran to my dad and he said probably the best thing we could do would be to pour some type of bug killer on it. So we got some out of the garage and poured it on her back end. The maggets all died and fell out of her. We then ran warm water over her to clean her off. She didn't eat much for the next couple days but it didn't seem that she was in pain. We also noticed that there looked to be a tumor on her left side because something was protruding from it. The last couple days she didn't seem to be getting better, but she didn't seem to be getting worse either. I came home yesterday, to find her not living. Do you have any idea as to what had happened to her? I know it's too late to help her but I would like to know why all this happened to her, so I can prevent it from happening to my other rabbits. Your opinion would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Answer
Hi Tay:

I'm so sorry to hear of your loss.

Your rabbit died of fly-strike and blood poisoning.  Fly-Strike happens when a fly lands on the rabbit and crawls into the rabbits genitals and lays egg.  Generally in the opening of the vagina or anus on a female.  The eggs hatch and the fly maggots live by eating the tissue of the genitals causing a wound and massive infection until they turn into flys and leave.

It can be treated by using tweezers to remove the maggots and treating the doe with antibiotics, but pouring on bug killer is the worst thing to do.  The bug killer you poured on entered the blood stream through the wound and poisoned her.

Here are a couple of links on fly strike:

http://www.medicanimal.com/viewarticle/~contentId=111555/~nodeTrailCsv=AR-SMALL_...

http://www.rabbit.org/journal/4-3/maggots.html

If you have any other rabbits, or if you get a new rabbit to replace this one, the best way to prevent fly-strike is to clean the cage and remove all feces daily, and keep the area clean and free of flies.

Lisa L.
BunnyGal.