Rabbit Seizures and Other Strange Behavior

Question
We have a female rabbit about one and a half years old, not spayed. She was a farm rabbit that we were babysitting and she fell in love with us so we decided to save her from the stew pot and give her a good home :)
We have had her for a year now and she has always displayed strange behaviour that frightened us at first but we've grown used to it. Every so often she will start twitching her head and fall over, kicking her legs and chattering her teeth, sometimes she runs into walls and furniture, and often ends up with a bleeding nose or lip.  These episodes typically last for less than a minute and we cuddle her until she calms down and her breathing rate and heart rate return to normal.  Tonight she has started something new: for the last hour, every 15 seconds or so she will raise her nose in the air and loudly chomp her teeth 8 or 10 times as her nose rises. She seems otherwise fine and is acting relaxed as normal. I can't think of anything out of the ordinary that happened today. Do you have any idea of what these two conditions could be? Thank you for your help.
Jason

Answer
Dear Jason,

Is she awake when she lifts her nose this way?  If so, it could be very serious, as a rabbit who does this is often indicating that she's having trouble breathing, and might have pneumonia.

I would get her to a good rabbit vet immediately:

www.rabbit.org/vets

for a listen to the chest *and* chest radiographs, since auscultation of rabbit lungs does not always reveal raspy sounds even when there is massive congestion.  If she has a lung infection, antibiotics will be necessary, and if she's raising her head to breathe, it would be very wise to nebulize her at least twice a day with antibiotics and drugs to open her airways and loosen the mucus in her lungs.

If this does turn out to be the case, please write back and I can give you more specific instructions.

The seizures may or may not be related to the lung infection.  Some rabbits appear to suffer from epileptic-type seizures, often for unclear reasons.  Mention this to the vet, too, in case the two problems are related.  

I hope your bunny will be well soon, but please write back if you have additional questions, especially once a positive diagnosis has been made by the vet.

Dana