blood in litter box, vet doesnt know what it is

Question
Hello,
My mini-rex bunny has had blood in her litter box for a little over two weeks. We took her to the vet upon noticing the blood. They didn't see any blood in her urine and thought it was hemorrhoids. The blood has not gone away. We feed her Timothy Hay, Timothy hay pellets, spinach and greens, water and occasional (but not recently) treats.
She is acting normally - very social.
The vet said the only way to know is to do an abdominal scan. Do you have any suggestions?

Answer
Dear Meghan,

If your bunny is not spayed, then you need a more experienced rabbit vet.  Unspayed female rabbits have a very high risk of uterine cancer, and the first sign is usually blood coming from the vulva.  This means that she will need to be spayed immediately, to save her life.  The good news is that if this is caught early, a spay will usually completely and permanently solve the problem, as this type of cancer is not extremely quick to metastasize.

It is not a bad idea to have chest radiographs done to be sure there are no metastases in the chest, but it's definitely vital to have a rabbit-experienced vet check her over and schedule that spay operation if she has not already had it.  If she's not spayed, then there is an extremely high chance that the problem is due to uterine hyperplasia or cancer.  Please read:

www.rabbit.org/health/spay.html

and find a rabbit-savvy vet here:

www.rabbit.org/vets

If the vet you saw really had no idea about this, then s/he is not experienced enough with rabbits to do this surgery, and you should *not* go back to this vet for your rabbit.

I hope this helps.

Dana