?? E. cuniculi - respiratory then urinary tract

Question
Hi Dana

Thought I'd share this in case it's useful to anyone. My 8 year old neutered male rabbit started snoring loudly when he was asleep, never done it before, only started a couple of months ago. I put it down to ageing and maybe floppy palate. Then one night I heard some noise in his nose/throat (couldn't tell) when he was eating his bunny biscuits and I thought he had slightly noisy breathing, but wasn't sure. Next day the fur around his eyes wet with tears. No pus, no discharge from nose, no sneezing, eating fine, active and seemed happy in himself. The vet could also hear upper respiratory tract noise, no other signs found, no specific diagnosis, teeth looked fine, heart OK, lungs clear. We agreed to start course of antibiotic (Baytril) and see what happened. Significant improvement on Baytril over next two weeks, his face stayed dry, snoring got quieter, noise in throat got less but still noticeable especially when he was eating hard food. Noise was coming from larynx - with bunny on my lap I could make it start and stop by tilting bunny's head down and up (respectively) and I could feel vibration where the noise was coming from. Then bunny, still on Baytril, started urinating outside of the litter tray - never done this before, no history of urinary tract problems (and certainly never peed all over me before!). No blood, no apparent discomfort, not drinking more than usual, just started peeing wherever he happened to be. Vet couldn't feel anything wrong with bladder (ie didn't feel sludgy, couldn't feel any big stones, exam didn't seem to hurt bunny). Vet reckoned it might be E. cuniculi urinary tract inflammation and we started 'Panacur rabbit' 7 days ago and kept him on the Baytril. Really good response - he peed four times in quick succession outside the litter tray a couple of hours after the first Panacur dose, by the next day he was using the litter tray as per usual. So we're going with the E. cuniculi diagnosis and will do 28 days Panacur treatment and then give him a preventive 9 day course in three months time. Funny thing is, the snoring and noise in his throat had gone completely the day after he started Panacur. Might be coincidence of course, but I suspect the respiratory symptoms were also caused E. cuniculi.

If you have any news updates about best ways of controllng/eradicating E. cuniculi I'd be very interested. I note from responses to other enquiries that you go with 20mg/kg once per day for 28 days, which is what my boy's getting.

Regards

Joan Walsh, England.

Answer
Dear Joan,

I'm glad the Panacur is working well for your bunny.  I'm not surprised that the snoring stopped, too, because E. cuniculi can cause neurological signs as well as damage the kidneys.  We had one terrible case of E. cuniculi in which poor Jamie was unable to swallow at the very end.  This was long before Panacur or ponazuril were being used to treat E. cuniculi.

If the Panacur stops working (in some cases, a bunny will stabilize, and then relapse, or will revert to symptoms once the Panacur is stopped), you might want to ask your vet about trying toltrazuril, which is readily available in the U.K.  We have it here as Ponazuril, but it's available only in horse dose tubes that are very expensive and difficult to use.

In the UK, toltrazuril is widely used to treat coccidia, and may be effective against E. cuniculi if the Panacur doesn't do the trick.

Hope your bunny stays well, and that this is the end of that E. cuniculi!

Take care, and thanks for sharing your experience.

Dana