Lionhead Rabbit 3 1/2 yr. old

Question
Wed.night I notice my rabbit's head was off to the left side more, holding his head over alittle.  Took him to the vet Fri.  He didn't have a temp. eyes looked good. The vet check him and said it was a bacterica infection something to do with the ear.  It throws the rabbit off balance.  He put him on baytril 68 twice a day.  He been eating some and drinking water.  Today I bought some pediatric electrolyte and gave him instead of water, thinking this might be better.  Do you think he has a chance to get better where he won't lose his balance?  Also want to mention he is a house rabbit.  He has a large cage and he
weighs 3 lbs.  I just don't know if rabbits can recover from this.  I will appreciate any help you can give me.

Thank, Kay

Answer
Hi Kay,

yes, rabbits can easily recover from this.  Often it is a pasteurella bacteria growth in the inner ear, middle ear, or brain.  It could also be from a virus called E. Cuniculi.  If you do not see any improvement on the antibiotic, and if so, he will probably get worse, you need to get him back immediately to be re-diagnosed.  The vet will have to make sure it is not E Cuniculi because baytril does not work against a virus.  He would need to be put on something called panacur.

If he is getting worse, and the vet re-confirms it is a bacteria, he will need to be placed on a stronger antibiotic such as chlorampehnicol.  If the tilt gets to the point that his 'down eye' is significantly pointing towards the floor, your vet should give you an antibiotic ointment to place in that eye to prevent infection if your rabbit scrapes his eye on the ground accidentally.

Often with an ear infection, they also provide you with a topical ointment or drops to place in the ear that is infected to help clear it up externally as well as attacking it through the body via the oral antibiotic.  I would definitely ask for this if you have to go back in because he is not responding to the current treatment.

I would avoid giving him the electrolyte as it has sugar in it, and with the antibiotic killing off both good and bad bacteria in his system, any extra sugar is going to fuel the bad bacteria into growing more and possibly causing gut problems in your rabbit.  I would instead provide him with some probiotics such as lactobacillus and acidophilus.  These come in tablet forms or capsule forms that you can open and sprinkle over moist greens or food pellets.  

But definitely they can recover and if you give him the full course of treatment and don't miss any scheduled dosings, and if you caught the infection before it caused any permanent damage to his balance area, he can recover 100%.  Even with a slight tilt (if there is permanent damage) rabbits are extremely adaptable and he could live a totally fulfilling life and be very happy.  One of my rabbits I adopted had bad head tilt that left him with a 10 degree tilt (or so) and it doesn't slow him down one bit.  He runs, he enjoys life, he is happy, and he is extremely healthy now.  

I should also point out that with this kind of illness, it is not uncommon for a rabbit that has 'permanent' damage to, a year or two down the road after he is cured of the virus/bacteria, to suddenly one day no longer have a tilt.  The brain can re-wire itself in some cases.  But I can tell you even when the tilt was very bad, it rarely slowed my rabbit down and he never appeared depressed or lethargic or uninterested in his regular food or treats.

He has an excellent chance of recovery from this if the infecting agent is diagnosed properly, the proper antibiotic or antviral is given for the full prescribed course of treatment.  You have to keep giving him all his medicine until it is gone, and if you need refills, give him the entire refills.  You really want to knock the infection out the first time, otherwise you will have only killed off the weaker bacteria/virii and the stronger ones will be left to re-infect.  And it will be much more difficult to kill them off if they get a good foothold.  It is good that it sounds like you did not wait very long to get him in to your vet once you saw something was wrong with him.  Hopefully you have caught it early before any lasting damage was done.

Let me know how it turns out.  Feel free to write back along the way, or anytime.

Lee