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Health New Zealand

22 10:44:50

Question
Please respond to this email address not the other one. I am raising a liter of 6 New Zealand Whites.  They are 7 wks old.  Three days ago I noticed one of my babies' ear was hanging down.  I have examined the ear and can see nothing wrong.  I observed bunny and he can't seem to raise that one ear, although he can lay both ears down his back.  Can you give advise on what is wrong with ear?  Also, when the bunnies were 3 wks old, I noticed a different baby had about 1/3 inch chewed from tip of ear.  It looks like more ear is being chewed on.  How can I stop this from happening?  I have one more question.  My adult male is extremely thin and it takes him 4 days to eat one cup of pellets.  I am worried about him.  Do you have any advice?  Thanks

Answer
Hi Sharon

The ears can be affected by several different things.  The first one would be mites.  You might not be able to see them yet and if you do have them in one rabbit then you will have them in all of the rabbits that are in that cage.  They are extremely contagious.  The other rabbits may not have weak ears but might have symptoms such as scratching.

Sometimes rabbits are pre-disposed to the vulnerability of certain infections.  If I see one of my rabbits with a droopy ear and know that there are no mites involved then I start thinking about inner ear and teeth problems.  It could be the very beginning of an infection of the inner ear which can lead to wry neck.  It could be a misalignment or misgrowth of the molars.  Although you can see malocclusions in the front teeth if they have them in the back teeth you can't see them.  A vet can put the rabbit under anesthesia and check the back teeth.  If the back teeth are misaligned or have spurs it can cause all sorts of problems with the head.  

It may very well be poor ear carriage.  The problem is that without a proper veterinary check-up you just aren't going to be able to tell.  Normally I would say that if the bunny is eating, drinking, pooping and acting normal to just keep an eye on it for now, however if it does have something contagious you have all the other rabbits to think about.  At the very least you should separate it now that it is 8 weeks old.  Keep an eye on it until you can get to the vet.

Try putting something more interesting in the cage for the babies to chew on than each other.  Make sure that there is always hay in there for them.  I like to put large chunks of untreated wood in the cages for all of my rabbits to chew on.  My mom and baby cages have foot board rests made out of untreated wood and the babies will gnaw on those frequently.  Even at young ages rabbits can get bored.  

Your buck sounds quite ill to me.  Although there are rabbits that are picky eaters and do eat less than others when they start to lose flesh condition it is time to figure out why.  There are many medical illnesses that could cause the problem varying from bad teeth to intestinal worms.  The absolute only thing you can do for this little guy is to get him to a vet.  He sounds like he is starving to death for an unknown reason.  That is such a slow and miserable way for a bunny to die.

If you need help finding a vet in your area you can try this site.

http://www.rabbit.org/vets/vets.html

Good luck Sharon and I hope all that your rabbits are ok.

Sincerely,

Pam