Urgent question regarding odd bunny behaviour

Question
Hi,

A little while ago my roughly 3 month old mini rex suddenly acting odd while she was running around. She essentially stiffened up and starting leaning to one side, she kept making a chewing motion while tilting her head back more and more which was leading her to fall over, though I was there gently holding her up so she wouldn't. I'm not sure if her eyes were doing anything and I don't believe she seemed to be doing any kind of jerking motions. When she was tilting over she was lifting one of her feet as well (mainly due to the fact that she was progressively leaning in the other direction) This only lasted maybe 20-30 seconds and then she started acting completely like normal again. I've never seen her do this before, nor have I ever seen it in the previous 15+ years of having had rabbits, perhaps I was just lucky. What do you think might have caused this? Since it's the dead of night at the moment I figured i'd post here first before calling a vet.

Sincerely,

Emily

Answer
Dear Emily,

It sounds as if your bunny had some source of irritation either in her mouth or ear, and the chewing motion was likely her way of trying to deal with it. An incipient ear infection could cause something like this, as could a foreign object stuck in the side of her mouth.  There are other possibilities, but these two come to mind immediately.

If she is exhibiting any signs of head tilt, please read this immediately:

www.rabbit.org/health/tilt.html

Keep a close eye on her for any sign of a repeat performance.  If she doesn't do this again, she might just have had something caught in the back of her mouth.  But any further sign of trouble, and I'd get her to an experienced rabbit vet for full evaluation:

www.rabbit.org/vets

including a good look at her molars for any sign of spurs or other problem:

www.bio.miami.edu/hare/dental.html

I hope she'll be fine from now on.

Dana