boil on the hock

Question
I noticed my older (8+) lop-eared bunny with sore hocks this summer and fall, off and on. He is not housed in a cage, but rather an outdoor pen with protected area.  Today, I noticed one of his feet had a round-ish red spot which (gross) exploded with about 1/4 teaspoon of pasty off-white pus that looked like a raw biscuit dough (best way to describe the consitency).  It had no odor.  The resulting hole appears to be quite deep, but there was not alot of bleeding, in other words, I feel the boil was encapsulated with a sort of scar tissue his body had created to contain the infection.  I washed with antibacterial soap, packed the 'hole' with Neosporin, bandaged with steril cotton.  My question is this: does he need a visit to a real vet with oral antibiotics or sutures?  Should I approach this as a "wait and watch"?  If no vet visit is warranted, how should I continue to clean and bandage the foot?

Answer
Dear Jennifer,

A hock abscess is not going to go away on its own.  Rabbit pus, as you've already seen, has the consistency of fresh mozarella cheese, at best, and hard cheese at worst.  Flushings won't do the trick to get it out.  Only systemic antibiotics will cure this, and the sooner the better.

I would strongly urge you to get your bunny to a good vet:

www.rabbit.org/vets

for a culture and sensitivity test on the pus from the hock abscess:

www.bio.miami.edu/hare/culture.html

Appropriate systemic antibiotics are the bunny's best chance for full recovery from this painful problem.

Dana