Tumor

Question
Over the space of about a day and a half my rabbit has created a very large tumor over her left eye that is so bad that even when you try and open it without huring her you cannot even see the eye underneath. It is pussing quite badly. I have also noticed she is quite swolen underneath and her fur is matted- although she has never been very clean and i have had to sort her out most of the time but this is worse than normal and i just dont know what to do. My grandfather who bred this rabbit said to bathe the eye which i have done and removed most of the puss but it is no better. Any advice wouold help- i am taking her to the vet tomorrow and have made up her home all new just incase its anything in the bedding. Anything i can do overnight to help it in anyway?  

Answer
Hi Kate,

I'm sorry to hear your rabbit's got an infected abscess.

You can continue to clean the eye out before going to the vet.  If the pussing area is actually not in the eye itself, but over the eye like you said, you can put a little neosporin (NOT neosporin plus) which is a triple-antibiotic ointment on the area.  It will probably not do much because rabbit pus is hard to penetrate (thicker than ours).  

The vet will be able to give you stronger antibiotics to knock the infection out.  Just make sure to give her all the antibiotics for as long as they are prescribed.  Give them to her until they are empty.

Also, you will need to give her probiotics and digestive enzymes during and after antibiotics.   The antibiotics will kill off both good and bad bacteria in her body, and she will need this so that her gut has 'good' bacteria and enzymes to digest her food better.

I'm glad you're taking her to the vet tomorrow.  That would've been the first thing I would have suggested.  Cleaning her house is a good touch.

She probably got a cut or abrasion (as you say it's over - like the upper eyebrow area - the eye).  She may have scraped or cut herself even when she was scratching an itch with her nails.  Or she brushed up against something that gave her a little cut or scrape and it got infected.  Their skin is paper thin so it doesn't take much to scrape or cut themselves.  As it's over the eye I wouldn't think it was a tooth root growing up or from a sinus infection.

Ask the vet about pain meds as well ,as a pain med like metacam can also reduce inflammation, if he/she believes that would be good in this case.

Let me know how it turns out.  Lee