pet rabbit legs

Question
When i first got my rabbit he walked instead of hopped. And now it is worse. He uses his front legs to pull himseld across his cage and it looks like his back legs can't support him. If he does try to hop or walk he falls over. He is part Dutch and part Mini Rex. He's not even a year old yet. What do you think is wrong with him and is he in pain. Also can it be treated?

Answer
This will be a multi-part answer.

First, I can't tell you what exactly is wrong with him.  It's obviously progressive.  A variety of things can cause this problem in rabbits.  This site gives the most common causes:
http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/paresis.html

As far what has caused this and the treatment possibilities, only a vet will be able to determine this for sure.  If you do not have a good rabbit vet, these sites have lists of recommended vets:
http://www.rabbit.org/vets/vets.html
http://homepage.mac.com/mattocks/morfz/PB_vets.html

In terms of pain. A rabbit in pain will commonly grind it's teeth.  It's usually a sharper grinding than the contented teeth grinding that a rabbit will do.

If your rabbit is in pain, a vet can give some medication to help with the pain.

The next topic is going to be care that you will have to provide for him since he can't use his back legs properly.  Hopefully a vet can help your rabbit, and you would only have to care for him for him in this fashion for a short time.

1.  Your rabbit may not be able to get to his cecotropes to eat them.  If this is the case, you will need to feed them to him as he needs the nutrition these provide him.  If you're not familiar with what these look like, this page has a picture;
http://www.sandiegorabbits.org/diet/cecals.html

2.  Your rabbit isn't going to be able to clean the inside of his ears.  You'll need to clean the was out of them.

3.  Your rabbit's backside may get dirty from urine or poop.  Since he won't be able to groom himself, you'll have to be on the watch for signs of urine scald or general dirtiness.  These sites have good info on urine scald and instructions on giving a rabbit a bath:
http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/urinary.html
http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/buttbath.html

In addition, these sites offer some more information on rabbits with similar injuries and what other things you can do for their quality of life:
http://www.mybunny.org/info/paralyzed.htm
http://www.rabbit.org/journal/3-12/disabled-litter.html

All this info may seem like too much.

But your first course of actions is to get to a vet.  Then a course of action can be decided upon.