Holland Lop Acting Odd

Question
QUESTION: I have a male holland lop that recently turned one. Today I noticed that he has not gone about his normal activities and has spent his time laying under my bed not moving much the entire day, which is very unlike him. When I managed to get him out from under the bed he seemed to be walking/hopping funny. He then fell over at least four times while hopping and also simply sitting. When he went to jump up into the second level of the cage he couldn't seem to attempt it and then once again fell. He seems to be falling on his left side and if I look closely I believe his back left foot is sticking out a little. He also seems uninterested in food and water, that I can tell.
Unfortunately their is only one rabbit savvy vet near by and she continues to refuse accepting new patients due to having too many. I'm not sure where to take him, since the vet I took my other rabbit too, while very kind, did not know much about rabbits. I'm starting to get really worried and by the time I noticed all of this all vet offices were closed. Do you have any idea what could be wrong with him? Any information and advice you can give me would be very helpful.
   Thanks so lot,
         Julie

ANSWER: Dear Julie,

I have never heard of a rabbit vet turning away patients because she has too many.  Your rabbit needs immediate care from a rabbit-savvy vet, even if it means you have to drive to find another one:

www.rabbit.org/vets

Inability to balance like this could be an early sign of head tilt:

www.rabbit.org/health/tilt.html

which can have many origins, but none of them are treatable at home.  Please get your little guy to a good vet ASAP.  If he's not eating or producing fecal pellets, please also read:

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

and

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

I hope this helps.

Dana

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks a lot for answering so quickly and informing me about head tilt. I did get him to a vet the next day and she could not find anything wrong physically with him. His ears did not show any sign of infection either. After she watched him walk around a bit and noticed a bit of a tilt to him, she prescribed Baytril in case he may be developing an infection. Unfortunately since he wouldn't eat anything, not even treats, I could not get him to eat the pill. After a day of trying I was going to try to syringe feed the pill to him. However, he showed no more signs of tilting or losing his balance. Even over the past few days he has acted completely normal as if nothing was ever wrong before. So now I'm wondering if maybe it was just a sprain or is it possible something may still be wrong?
Should I try to feed him the pills or should I leave it alone? He is acting completely normal now and has no problems at all running around, jumping, etc. Plus he is back to eating everything in his path, as he did before.

Answer
Dear Julie,

If you didn't give him any antibiotics at all, then it would not be harmful to not give the Baytril, as long as he is acting normal now.  It could be that his immune system is handling whatever it was that was causing the tilt.  

However, it's never a good idea to stop giving a course of antibiotics once you've started, even (or maybe especially) if the signs of illness subside.  This is because the antibiotics may have killed the most susceptible bacteria, knocking back the population to a level the host's immune system can handle better, but the more resistant bacteria will remain.  These will be the progenitors of the next generation, should your bunny's system ever become compromised enough for the bacteria to proliferate again.  For this reason, it's important to use antibiotics for the entire course the doctor prescribes--to prevent future problems with resistant bacteria.

I would contact the vet and ask about this, just to be safe.  For now, keep a close eye on him for any sign of recurrence.  We can hope it was just a fluke, but in my experience, a bunny (especially a lop) who shows signs of torticollis once is prone to do so again.  I hope your little guy doesn't!

If you do have to give him antibiotics again, please contact me for instructions on how to compound the medication so you can actually get it down him, or ask the vet to compound it for you.  It's practically impossible to get a rabbit to take a pill (is this vet mostly a dog/cat vet?  I don't know any rabbit vets who send a client home with pills to give a rabbit.), but if you crush and suspend medication in a liquid vehicle, it's pretty easy to give the meds via mouth syringe.

Hope he stays well, and you won't need it.  

Take care,
Dana