My rabbit keeps falling over.

Question
We have a male (neutered) and female (complete)pair (approx. 1 year old) and introduced a 7 week old male to them.  They all got on very well as a family unit for about a month.  We arrived home one afternoon to find the little one dragging his hind legs.  We immediately took him to the vets who could not find anything wrong (no breaks etc., he had an X ray).  We obviously separated him from the other two and he has improved over the past month.  We have noticed that the female has become aggressive towards him, so we suspect that she attacked him.  He can hop around fine now but when he goes up on his hind legs or washes, he is prone to falling over to the right.  He also has a place on his right knee which he washes a lot and has lost the fur in this area (about the size of a shirt button).  My husband thinks he can see a blue area under his skin.  It is six weeks since this happened and I wondered if you can suggest anything to help him recover and have any idea what could have happened.

Answer
Dear Sally,

Without seeing the bunny or being there when the incident occurred, I can't know what happened any more than you can.  But I think your guess is good:  one or other (or both) of the resident rabbits attacked the baby and did some pretty serious damage.  

Breaks don't always show up on radiograph right away if they are "mild" (i.e., just a crack).  Sometimes it takes a week or so of healing before the calcification along a broken/cracked bone will show up.  So it's not impossible that something was broken and still is painful.  Bone *bruises* are also very painful.  It's very lucky that the bunny was not injured more seriously.

Another trip to a rabbit-savvy vet would not hurt:

www.rabbit.org/vets

but if he's using all four legs and putting weight on them, then it sounds as if he's recovering, if slowly.  I'd keep an eye on him, and certainly don't put him with the other bunnies without doing very careful bonding procedures.  As you found out the hard way, rabbits are ferociously territorial, and I have known aggressive adult rabbits to actually *kill* an intruding juvenile!

Please see:

http://search.atomz.com/search/?sp-a=00062824-sp00000000&sp-q=bonding

for tips on bonding.

Hope this helps!

Dana