Muscle Atrophy in Netherland Dwarf

Question
Hi there
Six months ago now we found out one of our rabbits, snow, had an accident. Snow and His brother were rocketing around the house top speed, and he clipped the dresser when he jumped back down off the bed.

His immediate diagnoses was that he had potentially dislocated/bruised his spine and he would be unlikely to fully recover. We decided against euthanisation and he's been a relatively happy bunny and fussed over by his brother.

But over the last few months, he's been slowly able to move his legs more - and is now able to control his bladder. Unfortunately though, he's lost significant amounts of muscle in his legs. I live in a small town in New Zealand, and my vet can only shrug his shoulders as to how to rebuild the muscle. I'd love to take him up north to the nearest rabbit friendly hospital, but that's involving multiple flights or ferry rides and is almost impossible for us to get there.

I'm hoping you might have some suggestions to build muscle on his lower back %26 legs?? I can't seem to find much on the subject and my vet doesn't know!!  

Answer
Hi,

well he should still be out for exercise periods.  The muscle mass will start to come back if he's encouraged to use it.  It will take time.  But you can sit on the opposite side of where he is and offer him a treat, and have him walk over to get it.  You can rub his legs if he allows for blood flow (even if just a side pet while sitting) and if he enjoys that.  If his area has a longer straight way in it you can put somehting he likes on one side of it so that he'll be more likely to hop there - longer straighter run areas encourage running and movement.  You can put play structures in there for him where he can lift himself more upright and use his legs more.  Being with his buddy will also help because he'll want to play again and having him around will motivate him to move more.

It will come back if you're seeing function return.  He's probably in the shape a lot of caged rabbits that never get out for exercise are.  If they are given the chance to move around, they will build the muscle up.  So it's just going to be a long recovery process.  I think we all get a distorted view of how long it takes because we see movies of people coming out of comas and then walking around shortly afterwards.  It's just not like that.

Patience, opportunity to exercise, some incentives and playthings that can help get him moving and using the legs, are what's needed.