my rabbit is infested with maggots

Question
We found our rabbit with maggots, we washed and combed him 3 or 4 times. We then cleaned out the cage, we keep finding more maggots on the rabbit but none in the cage and we don't know what to do. What should we do?

Answer
Dear Debbie,

You should consider this a veterinary emergency and get bunny to a good rabbit vet NOW for subcutaneous fluids, repair of the damaged areas (even if just for topical cleaning) and other supportive care.

If the maggot-damaged area is extensive, it might be necessary to surgically repair it, but only after the bunny is stabilized, since fly-struck rabbits often go into shock and are very poor surgical candidates.

Your vet will probably have access to some brand of "artificial skin" such as Tegaderm that can be applied to a damaged area until things stabilize enough to see whether surgery is necessary to repair it.

Keep looking for those maggots.  Wash the affected areas with large amounts of povidone iodine (betadine) diluted with clean, lukewarm water.  Maggots *hate* betadine, and will wriggle and make themselves visible so that you can pick them out with tweezers.  Carefully clip the hair away from the affected areas (be VERY CAREFUL not to cut the skin, which is extremely thin and fragile!) so that you can see any returning maggots.

Check the folds of skin beside the pubic area, where the scent glands are, since maggots seem to like those areas.  Anywhere skin meets skin, look for maggots and remove them.

Look again in an hour or two, since the maggots who fled into the fur will return to the warm, naked areas over time.

Search the fur for any additional clumps of fly eggs (they look like tiny, tiny grains of rice, all stuck together), and remove them by clipping them out with scissors.  

Dust all the furry areas of the bunny's back and rear end (NOT the wet areas!) with baby cornstarch (from the baby section of the supermarket), as this will help dry out any eggs you miss.

But mainly, get the bunny to the vet for care immediately!

Dana